Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

PRESTON CORPORATION BILL

Lords Amendments considered and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF AVIATION

Fairey Delta 2 Aircraft

Mr. Lubbock: asked the Minister of Aviation if the cost of modifying the Fairey Delta 2 and of the subsequent flight test programme to be undertaken by the Royal Aircraft Establishment is to be shared by the British and French Governments in view of its direct application to the Concord programme; and if the money for this work is included in the original estimate of £150 million for development of the Concord.

The Minister of Aviation (Mr. Julian Amery): No, Sir. The modification of the Fairey Delta 2—now designated BAC.221—was undertaken in 1959 as part of our general research programme on supersonic flight. The aircraft was designed for research on problems associated with slender delta wings and was not directed to specific aircraft applications. It is contributing valuable information to the Concord programme, but it is not part of that programme and its costs are therefore not appropriate to it.

Mr. Lubbock: Is the Minister aware that the Press release by the British Aircraft Corporation said that this work would be directly applicable to the Concord programme? Could he say what the cost of modifying the 221 was and how much other expenditure has been incurred on work connected with the

Concord programme which has not been shared evenly by the British and French Governments? If the amount is as extensive as I think it is, does it not indicate that it was a rather unequal bargain?

Mr. Amery: No, I do not think so. A great deal of work done on both sides of the Channel which contributes to the programme has application to it but it not a direct part of it, but I should like to have notice of the specific points raised by the hon. Member.

Mr. Cronin: Has not the Estimates Committee already criticised the Minister quite strongly for not sharing with the French the expense of the supersonic transport? Would it not be appropriate in this case if he made sure that we shared these expenses?

Mr. Amery: My reading of the Estimates Committee Report is quite different from that of the hon. Member. I do not think it criticised us for not sharing the expense on the supersonic transport. It is quite plain that all expenses directly applicable to Concord are being shared on a fifty-fifty basis. There may well be a considerable area of research in both countries which has a bearing on this but which is not a direct part of the programme.

Private Flying (Aerodromes)

Commander Courtney: asked the Minister of Aviation what aerodromes listed in the United Kingdom Air Pilot have been closed to private flying over the last three years.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Aviation (Mr. Neil Marten): Apart from small landing strips—used only for holiday joy rides—there have, during the last three years, been nine deletions from the list in the Air Pilot of aerodromes available for civil fliers. Of these, three have been or are being replaced and two military airfields may soon be re-opened as civil aerodromes. During the same period, there have been 15 additions to the list of aerodromes available for civil fliers. I am arranging for the details to be published in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Commander Courtney: Is my hon. Friend aware that since 1939 no fewer than 14 airfields used for private flying and business flying have been closed in


the vicinity of London alone? Is this fate likely to overtake aerodromes at Booker and White Waltham?

Mr. Marten: I do not know about White Waltham, but certainly we hope that Booker airfield will be developed as a civil aerodrome.

Following are the details:


AERODROMES LISTED IN "AIR PILOT" WHICH WERE CLOSED TO CIVIL FLIERS DURING THE PAST THREE YEARS


Civil aerodromes
Remarks


Belfast (Nutts Corner).
Now replaced by Aldergrove.


Peterborough
Alternatives are being found.


Reading (Woodley)
Another landing strip is being planned in the area.


R.A.F. airfields



Booker
Will probably be developed as a civil aerodrome.


Horsham St. Faith
May be developed as a civil aerodrome.


Duxford
—


Lyneham
—


Tangmere
—


Waterbeach
—

AERODROMES LISTED IN "AIR PILOT" WHICH HAVE BEEN MADE AVAILABLE TO CIVIL FLIERS DURING THE PAST THREE YEARS


Civil aerodromes


Barrow in Furness
Enniskillen (St. Angelo)


Blackbushe
Halfpenny Green


Chalgrove
Hucknall South


Compton Abbas
Nottingham (Tollerton)


Dundee (Riverside Park)
Shobdon



Sunderland (Usworth)


R.A.F. airfields


Binbrook
Northolt


North Weald
West Raynham

R.A.F. (New Aircraft)

Mr. McMaster: asked the Minister of Aviation what is the average time taken between the formulation of a requirement for a new aircraft and the aircraft coming into service with the Royal Air Force.

Mr. J. Amery: The times taken for typical aircraft now in service have ranged from 4½ years to 10½ years according to the nature of the requirement.

Mr. McMaster: What is the Government's policy with respect to formulating requirements sufficiently far in advance that aircraft will be in service to meet the transport, and particularly the strategic transport, requirements of our Armed Forces?

Mr. Amery: The Staffs try to look as far ahead as they can. Most of our transport requirements are met by adaptations from the civil field The freighting side is rather different, because civil freighting has not developed as far as many people had hoped. As my hon. Friend knows, both the Belfast and the HS 681 are being developed on a purely military basis.

Short Brothers and Harland

Mr. McMaster: asked the Minister of Aviation if he will give the number of persons at present employed by Short Brothers and Harland; and what is the average number he estimates will be employed by the firm in each of the next five years.

Mr. J. Amery: The number at present employed is about 7,300. As to the future level of employment, I have nothing to add to the statement which I made during the debate on the Consolidated Fund (No. 2) Bill on 19th March.

Mr. McMaster: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is considerable apprehension in the firm about a serious run-down of employment in three or four years' time? What steps is he taking to place further orders with Short Bros. in order to prevent this run-down of employment and to maintain a balanced design and production unit in Northern Ireland?

Mr. Amery: I am, of course, aware of the different statements which have been made. It was my impression that the firm had gone back somewhat on one of the statements made which had caused some despondency. I stand by the earlier statement which I made that the figure of employment will not fall, we think, much below 6,000 for the rest of the decade.

Mr. McMaster: Could the Minister be a little more specific in telling us what he means by "much below 6,000"?

Mr. Amery: I should not like to be pressed into exact detail, but I should have thought within a few hundreds of 6,000.

Mr. Ellis Smith: Will the Minister bear in mind that there is a growing


feeling in England, which I share, that it is time that the industrial parts of England received attention from the Government in matters of this kind?

Mr. Amery: I fully see what the hon. Member means, but Northern Ireland has a very serious unemployment problem.

Mr. Rankin: So has Scotland.

Mr. Amery: The Northern Ireland problem is perhaps the most serious in the Kingdom at the moment, and we must pay some attention to it, even if it involves certain sacrifices.

Mr. Speaker: Order. When the general conversation in the House has reached an end, I will call Mr. Pounder to ask the next Question.

British European Airways (Buses)

Mr. Pounder asked: the Minister of Aviation if he will give a general direction to British European Airways, in the public interest, to provide buses of about 20-seater capacity to connect with British European Airways domestic flights which will leave for the city terminal approximately five minutes after the flight arrival for the convenience of passengers travelling with cabin luggage only.

Mr. Marten: No, Sir; the timing of these services and the type of vehicle used are management matters for which British European Airways are responsible.

Mr. Pounder: Is my hon. Friend not aware that at London Airport, in particular, there is often a delay of 15 to 20 minutes between the arrival of the flight and the departure of the coach for the city terminus? Is he not aware that this is due to the time taken for luggage collection? Is he not aware that normally it takes two coaches to meet the requirements of each of these domestic flights? Will he consider using one of them for business men travelling with hand luggage only?

Mr. Marten: Both these are questions of management for the airline and not questions on which I could agree to give a general direction, which is the subject of the Question on the Order Paper.

Buses (Non-Smoking Accommodation)

Mr. Biggs-Davison: asked the Minister of Aviation if he will give a general direction, in the public: interest, to the Air Corporations to provide nonsmoking accommodation on buses running between airports and air terminals.

Mr. Marten: No, Sir. This is a matter within the Corporations' own sphere of judgment and responsibility.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: As my hon. Friend probably has a good deal of influence with the Corporations, will he not ask them to realise that before or after an air journey is about the last possible time that a non-smoker wants to be alongside a pipe, cigar or cigarette?

Mr. Marten: My influence is probably no more than my hon. Friend's influence. B.E.A. certainly pay attention to the trends of public opinion in these matters. I can tell my hon. Friend that B.E.A. will shortly be having double-decker buses going out to the airport, and perhaps they might consider having the top deck for smokers and the bottom deck for non-smokers.

Mr. Snow: Is the hon. Member aware that there is support in this matter from at least one hon. Member on this side of the House?

Mr. Hilton: More than one.

Mr. Snow: I said at least one. Is he aware that the public demand should be impressed upon the mind of the managements concerned?

Mr. Marten: The Question raised in the House today and the observations of my hon. Friend the Member for Chigwell (Mr. Biggs-Davison) and the hon. Member for Lichfield and Tam-worth (Mr. Snow) will make an impression upon the minds of B.E.A.

Mr. Rankin: May I take it from what the Minister said that he is sympathetic to the idea that some attention ought to be paid to the non-smoker as well as the undeserved attention which is paid to the smoker? As he knows, I have tried on many occasions to get non-smoking arrangements on aircraft. Those attempts have been turned down. Does he hope to be more successful in his


efforts to impress on B.E.A. the need to provide non-smoking accommodation at least on the buses?

Mr. Marten: The second part of the supplementary question raises another question. I am always sympathetic with opinions of this nature expressed in the House.

B.O.A.C. (VC 10 Aircraft)

Mr. Stonehouse: asked the Minister of Aviation (1) what approval he has given for compensation to be paid for the cancellation of VC 10 aircraft by British Overseas Airways Corporation to the British Aircraft Corporation; and what is the amount per aircraft;
(2) what liability Her Majesty's Government are accepting for compensation to the British Aircraft Corporation for the reduction of the British Overseas Airways Corporation's order.

Mr. Diamond: asked the Minister of Aviation how many VC 10 aircraft British Overseas Airways Corporation now propose to take out of the original order of 45.

Mr. Lee: asked the Minister of Aviation whether he will make a statement on the future VC 10 requirements of the British Overseas Airways Corporation.

Mr. J. Silverman: asked the Minister of Aviation (1) if he will consult the Secretary of State for Defence with a view to diverting some of the 42 VC l0s ordered by the British Overseas Airways Corporation to the Royal Air Force;
(2) if he will give an assurance that the unemployment position in Northern Ireland will be taken into account when considering the diversion of surplus British Overseas Airways Corporation VC l0s to the Royal Air Force as an alternative to ordering Belfast Freighters from Short Brothers and Harland Limited.

Mr. Cronin: asked the Minister of Aviation how many VC 10 aircraft will now be required by the British Overseas Airways Corporation; and what financial arrangements will be made with regard to VC 10 aircraft ordered in excess of the Corporation's requirement.

Mr. J. Amery: I have nothing to add to the Written Answer I gave to the hon. Member for Wednesbury (Mr. Stone-house) on 13th May.

Mr. Stonehouse: Is the Minister aware that the reply which he gave before the Recess was quite inadequate in that all he said was that he was giving consideration to the Question? Is he prepared to deny that the original order which B.O.A.C. made for the VC 10 is being substantially reduced, and that the original order was made as a result of Ministerial direction? Arising out of this, what responsibility does the Minister accept for compensation to be paid to the manufacturers who are losing the order received originally from B.O.A.C.? Will he answer Question No. 8 on liability?

Mr. Amery: The hon. Member is anticipating a number of matters. Had I been in a position either to confirm what he said or deny it, I should have done so. I have given the answer which I have given because all this is still under consideration in the Corporation and is a matter of discussion between the Corporation and my Department.

Mr. Lee: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that Sir Giles Guthrie has undertaken a route study and that, as a result of that study, we shall know whether there is to be cancellation of some VC l0s or whether some of the Boeings will go? Will the right hon. Gentleman say that he will undertake to let the House know the contents of Sir Giles Guthrie's Report and that he will make a statement in the House about it, and that within it we shall know whether compensation is to be paid and how many VC l0s are being laid off, in order that we may judge whether the compensation is fair?

Mr. Amery: The hon. Member has asked a number of questions. Plainly we shall have to tell not only the House but the Corporation what Sir Giles intends. This is something which I shall have to tell the House when we deal with the accumulated deficit. But I hope to be able to make a statement well before that.

Mr. Diamond: In these circumstances, is it not the case that we shall possibly be denied the opportunity of discussing


the matter at all in this Parliament? Was that one of the elements entering into the consideration which the Minister has given to this matter—that this is the last Question Time when he will be top of the list before this Parliament ends?

Mr. Amery: I am told that it is not the last occasion. It is possible that this consideration enters into the hon. Member's mind, but it does not enter into mine. Apart from that, I naturally wish, as I am sure does Sir Giles Guthrie, at the first opportunity to tell the House, the Corporation and the country what is intended.

Mr. J. Silverman: When the Minister talks about telling the House at an early opportunity, will he give the House an assurance that he will make a full statement upon all the issues involved before the House rises for the August Recess? Will he then be able to tell us what consultations he has had with the Minister of Defence with respect to transferring some of these aircraft to the Royal Air Force, and other matters which I have raised in my Question?

Mr. Amery: The hon. Member realises that it is not my task to decide the policy of the Corporation in these matters. I have to receive a recommendation from the Corporation. I hope that I shall be able to make a fairly early statement about it, but there are a number of considerations, some industrial, some affecting the Corporation, which the Government will want to consider in detail. Defence matters may be raised, as the hon. Member said. I cannot give an undertaking on when I shall make the statement, but I should like to make it as soon as possible, because there are a number of seriously interested parties who want to know.

Sir A. V. Harvey: While appreciating that my right hon. Friend will need time to come to the right conclusion in this matter, can he in the meantime say whether or not the Government directed B.O.A.C. to order the number it ordered? This should be cleared up. In view of the importance of this whole matter, will my right hon. Friend consult the Leader of the House with a view to making a special statement, or perhaps having a short debate, because many millions of

pounds are involved and this is a matter of debating a policy?

Mr. Amery: I should have thought that we will be debating the questions and answers put by the Estimates Committee on Transport Aircraft—

Mr. Stonehouse: Answer the question.

Mr. Amery: This is the answer. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Sir A. V. Harvey) asked whether I might arrange for a short debate to be held. That was the main point of his question and I was dealing with it first. I was saying that I should have thought that in the normal course of events, through the usual channels—although this is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House rather than for me—the House would be likely to debate the position generally on the Report of the Estimates Committee on Transport Aircraft. That would enable hon. Members to discuss the whole question of Government policy and any suggestion of pressure, although I would deny that there had been any direct pressure.

Mr. Lubbock: Will the Minister say whether or not an opportunity will occur for him to make a statement before the Summer Recess and that when Sir Giles reports to him that Report will be published in full and not as a bowdlerised version of it?

Mr. Amery: I could not possibly give that assurance, because I do not know what that Report will contain or what sections of it Sir Giles will wish to keep confidential.

. Mr. Diamond: asked the Minister of Aviation whether he approved the cancellation of three VC10 aircraft, at a cost of £600,000, out of the original order of 45 by British Overseas Airways Corporation.

Mr. J. Amery: In 1961 British Overseas Airways Corporation decided to alter the proportion of Standard and Super VC10 aircraft on order. At this time, with the agreement of the Ministry, it negotiated the cancellation of three standard aircraft in order to comply with my precedessor's stipulation that the estimated cost of the whole order should not be increased.

Mr. Diamond: If, as I understand from the Minister's reply, the cost of cancellation in this case was £200,000 per aircraft, what credit is to be attached to the report that the figure being considered for cancellation in the new circumstances is £1½ million per aircraft, or seven times as much? Does not this question relate directly to the question which his hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Sir A. V. Harvey) asked about pressure being put to increase the number of aircraft ordered by B.O.A.C.?

Mr. Amery: It is not my job to comment on reports in the Press about matters which are discussed between others. Even if I were a party to them, they are still very far from firm.

Mr. Rankin: asked the Minister of Aviation why British Overseas Airways Corporation ordered 20 more VC10 aircraft than their first estimate; and why an option for 10 aircraft was made into a binding contract.

Mr. J. Amery: B.O.A.C.'s order in 1957 was for 35 Standard VC 10s. This was related to its estimated future requirements for southern and eastern routes. In 1960 it exercised an option to order 10 Super VC l0s for its transatlantic routes. To improve operating flexibility, these orders were revised in 1961 to 12 Standard and 30 modified Super VC 10s.

Mr. Rankin: Does the right hon. Gentleman not realise that because he refused permission for B.O.A.C. to buy Boeing 707s but tied the Corporation to the VC 10 programme, which has now fallen into confusion and disarray as a result of the incompetence and incompetent handling of himself and those concerned with him, B.O.A.C. is now being compelled to use aircraft which it would normally be grounding—this at a time when the traffic figures of B.O.A.C. have enormously increased and the load factor is now 60 per cent. greater than a year ago? Does the right hon. Gentleman not realise that the sooner he makes his long-delayed statement on the subject of aircraft procurement the better it will be for B.O.A.C., and when will he make that statement?

Mr. Amery: I said earlier that I hoped to make a statement as early as possible, but I am sure that the hon. Member would not wish to stand here and give the impression that he was backing American

aircraft against British aircraft. I am sure that he would not wish to give that impression.

Aircraft Accidents (Compensation to Holidaymakers)

Mr. Milne: asked the Minister of Aviation if he will introduce legislation to provide for the payment of compensation to holidaymakers who are involved in aircraft accidents.

Mr. Marten: The Carriage by Air Acts, 1932 to 1962, already provide for the payment of such compensation.

Mr. Milne: Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that this does not go far enough, because an increasing number of aircraft are being pushed into service during the holiday period which places strains and stresses not only on aircraft personnel but on the aircraft themselves? Does he not agree that the people operating this highly lucrative industry should have greater responsibility to the people they are transporting?

Mr. Marten: If the hon. Member is referring to the travel agents who organise this, then if they have a contractual relationship as principal with the passenger they, of course, have a liability.

Staff Applicants (Educational Qualifications)

Mr. Hector Hughes: asked the Minister of Aviation if he will make a statement on the requirements relating to the educational qualifications of applicants for posts in his Department, with particular reference to the distinction he makes between candidates who have passed the 0 level in Scotland and the General Certificate of Education examination in England to the detriment of the former.

Mr. Marten: Recruitment for the general service classes and Departmental grades in the Ministry of Aviation is generally carried out through the Civil Service Commission. Particulars of the educational qualifications required in each competition are given in the relevant competition regulations. I am satisfied that there is no discrimination between candidates who have passed the O level in Scotland and those who have passed the General Certificate of Education in England.

Mr. Hughes: Does the Parliamentary Secretary remember the case of the educated young Scottish lady about whom I wrote to him recently, a person who was suitable in every way for a post in his Department but who was rejected? Does he deny that she was rejected because she was Scottish and not English, and will he give up this racial discrimination?

Mr. Marten: The is no racial discrimination in this, unless it be that the applicant had a number of 0 levels but did not have a pass in English, which she had to have.

London Airport and Northolt (Identification)

Mr. Gresham Cooke: asked the Minister of Aviation if he will have the words "Northolt" and "Heathrow" painted on the tops of the gasholders near Northolt and London Airports so as to avoid confusion and possible accidents arising from the use of runway 26 at Northolt instead of runway 23 at Heathrow.

Mr. Marten: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's suggestion and I am glad to say that the North Thames Gas Board is now painting distinguishing markings on the gasholders near Northolt and Heathrow Airports so that pilots of aircraft approaching Runway 26 at Northolt and Runway 23 at Heathrow shall not confuse them. A flight check has shown that marking on the sides of the gasholders are likely to be more effective than on the tops and that abbreviations of the names of the respective airports are more suitable than the names in full.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: Will my hon. Friend express appreciation to the North Thames Gas Board for this, because it seems that this will get over the difficulty of pilots, such as the American Boeing pilot and the Lufthansa pilot, mistaking Northolt for Heathrow?

Mr. Marten: I am grateful for those observations.

Directorate of Technical Costs (Report)

Mr. Lubbock: asked the Minister of Aviation if he will make a statement on the findings of the internal working party which was appointed to review the functions,

methods of working, organisation and staffing of the Directorate of Technical Costs, and which has now reported.

Mr. J. Amery: This working party has not yet reported.

Mr. Lubbock: While the working party is considering these questions, has the Minister got nothing to say about the fact that people in the Technical Costs Department start at £712 per year and that less than half a dozen among the 300 employed in that Department have an engineering qualification? Does he not consider this an urgent enough matter on which to make a decision now?

Mr. Amery: Although the hon. Member's observations might form part of a separate Question, it would, in any case, be inappropriate for me to deal with pay and salary scales and similar matters until we have received the report of the working party and, preferably, also the report of Sir John Lang.

Mr. Diamond: When does the right hon. Gentleman expect to receive those two reports?

Mr. Amery: I cannot give a date when I will receive the internal departmental report. That is a departmental matter. There is a Question down about the Lang report with which I shall be dealing presently.

B.O.A.C.-Cunard Limited

Mr. Lee: asked the Minister of Aviation what profits have accrued to British Overseas Airways Corporation as a result of their agreement with the Cunard Company.

Mr. J. Amery: B.O.A.C.'s accounts for 1962ߝ63 show that from the inception of the company in June, 1962 to March, 1963, B.O.A.C.-Cunard Ltd. lost just over £1 million, of which B.O.A.C.'s share was £744,000. Although the accounts for 1963ߝ4 are not yet available, B.O.A.C. tells me that the results will show a marked improvement.

Mr. Lee: The information we now have is that there will be a considerable profit during the current year. If that is so, can the right hon. Gentleman say how it will be divided? Is it within the agreement that shareholders of Cunard will receive dividends from the profits made


by B.O.A.C.-Cunard, despite the fact that B.O.A.C., as such, is still many millions of £s in the red; in other words, that the nationalised sector will carry very heavy capital debts while shareholders from Cunard are bound to be given dividends as a result of the agreement?

Mr. Amery: Losses or profits are shared between B.O.A.C. and Cunard in proportion to the capital invested by each in the company. Cunard has shared in the losses with B.O.A.C. over the last year; if there are profits, it will share the profits.

Mr. Lee: I do not think the Minister understands the point. B.O.A.C. still carries a very heavy debt—the right hon. Gentleman has refused to write off £80 million. Within this, we have a small segment of B.O.A.C. that will be profitable. Do I take it that while B.O.A.C. still has to write off deficits B.O.A.C.-Cunard can pay dividends, or has to pay dividends, if there is a profit shown on the B.O.A.C.-Cunard side of the arrangement?

Mr. Amery: That will be so, of course, but I am sure that the hon. Member would not want to question that. For example, B.O.A.C. has a number of other associated agreements with Cathay Pacific and others. If those were to be individually profitable, the hon. Gentleman would not wish those companies not to be paid a dividend because B.O.A.C. was not making a profit.

Sir A. V. Harvey: Should not one take a broad view of these matters? The fact that this joint enterprise is now showing a profit may to some extent be due to the organisation of Cunard in North America, which is throwing its weight into the sales organisation.

Mr. Amery: I have no doubt that Cunard has helped considerably on the sales side and, by rationalising the competition previously existing, both associates have been made conjointly more successful than they would be in rivalry. Some of the associated companies have not been so successful, as I had to explain in the debate last autumn, but when we have a successful association, I should have thought that that the House would have been pleased about it.

Mr. Paget: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell the House what is the difference between rationalising competition and eliminating it?

Hon. Members: Answer.

Mr. Amery: Of course I shall answer. It is a perfectly understood principle of economic operation that very often economic forces join together for the development of a particular market against intensive foreign competition.

V.T.O. Aircraft Engines

Mr. Turner: asked the Minister of Aviation how many types of aircraft employ British designed and built vertical take-off engines.

Mr. J. Amery: Apart from helicopters, four existing aircraft types are fitted with vertical take-off and landing engines of British design and manufacture—the British SC1 and P1127, the French Balzac and the German VJ101c.
Aircraft under development which will be powered by British lift engines are the P1154, the Mirage III V and the experimental Dornier 31.

Mr. Turner: In view of those encouraging facts, and the fact that complete and developed aircraft are the best way of promoting sales, can my right hon. Friend say that every possible stop is being pulled out—to use commercial jargon—to get these aircraft into the air so that customers overseas can see them and, possibly, buy them?

Mr. Amery: Yes, indeed. The first four I mentioned are already flying—the SC1, the P1127, the Balzac and the VJ101c. Of these, the SC1, the Balzac and the German aeroplane are predominantly research aircraft. The P1127 could be an operational aircraft. The other three have not yet flown, but these will all feature one or other British vertical take-off techniques. I know of no vertical take-off technique of any other country that is being applied to any particular aeroplane.

Mr. Cronin: Would not the export of vertical take-off aircraft have been encouraged if the right hon. Gentleman had not rejected the P1154 in favour of the American Phantom?

Mr. Amery: My right hon. Friend the Minister of Defence has specifically adopted the P1154 for the Royal Air Force. The only question that faced us was whether to develop a second version of the P1154 for the Royal Navy. To have done so would, on our best estimate, have added a formidable bill—over £100 million—to what would have to be spent if we bought from overseas the relatively small number of aircraft required. That is why we have been investigating the possibility of buying the Phantom aircraft from the United States to meet the Royal Navy, as distinct from the Royal Air Force, requirement. Tests on this are still going on, but the Royal Air Force requirement will be met by the P1154.

Mr. McMaster: Can my right hon. Friend say what further research and development is being undertaken in this country into the Rolls-Royce multi-jet vertical take-off and landing system? is it not a shame that the "know-how" in this important field should be lost to French and German interests?

Mr. Amery: I do not think that the "know-how" is being lost. Apart from the British SC1, the German experimental Dornier 31 is the subject of a joint study which is being undertaken between Hawker Siddeley and Dornier with British engines. Our own view, which must be tentative at the moment, is that the Rolls-Royce concept is better suited to transport aircraft than to combat aircraft, where the minimisation of weight is the most important consideration.

Exports

Sir A. V. Harvey: asked the Minister of Aviation if he will state the volume of aircraft, aero-engines, guided weapons and electronic equipment exported since 1959.

Mr. J. Amery: In the period 1959 to 1963, total exports of aircraft, aero-engines, guided weapons and parts of these equipments, together with complete electronic equipments, were valued at £840 million, or an annual average of £168 million. During this period, exports of aero-engines and parts of aircraft and engines slowed a substantial rise.
Exports of complete electronic equipments have increased each year

since 1960. It is estimated that in 1964, total exports will maintain the 1959–63 average, but next year should see a substantial increase, as large export orders for the latest: types of aircraft and guided weapons are then programmed for delivery.

Sir A. V. Harvey: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that this is a very fine achievement by the British Aircraft industry, and does he think that those figures could be sustained if our aircraft industry were nationalised? Further, what steps are the Government taking to deal with American competition in the N.A.T.O. countries, where more orders should be forthcoming?

Mr. Amery: My hon. Friend is absolutely right in saying that this is a creditable achievement. I think that it gives the lie to the persistent efforts of some hon. Members opposite to "knock" the efforts of tie British aircraft industry. We are doing our very best in N.A.T.O. and outside to support and encourage the export of British equipments. We face very serious competition, particularly from the United States We are doing our best to meet it, and meet it on the same terms

Mr Lee: Can the Minister say who are the "hon Members opposite" who have been trying to "knock" the aircraft industry? Would he agree that in the years concerned in this Question there has been a rather disappointing response in the export of airframes—that, indeed, we owe a great deal to the export of aero engines and pay tribute to the firms concerned, but that if this complacent attitude towards airframes is to be adopted, when, in fact, exports are not increasing as they should, we cannot expect to get an adequate return on the great public expense incurred? As to nationalisation, to which the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Sir A. V. Harvey) referred, perhaps the Minister can tell him that 75 per cent of the French aircraft industry, which has a far better export record than we have, is nationalised?

Mr. Amery: Am I to interpret the last part of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question as an argument in favour of nationalisation? If so, I am grateful to him, and we shall proceed on the assumption that that is what he


is maintaining. When the hon. Gentleman asks who has been "knocking" the industry, I would say that the hon. Member for Newton (Mr. Lee) himself has been fairly prominent in doing this, and even more prominent—though he is not here at the moment, and I have not been able to give him notice that I would mention this—is the hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey), who never stops knocking the TSR2 and every other serious project on which we embark. It would not, I think, be difficult to find a list of substantial quotations from other hon. Members opposite. The right hon Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition himself has probably prejudiced the export of a substantial amount of equipment, particularly in regard to the Buccaneer aeroplane.

Mr. G. Brown: Does the Minister realise that there is a great difference between criticising, as is our right and duty, doubtful aspects of Government policy and being accused of "knocking" the industry? Is he aware that if he talks to any leading manufacturer in the industry he will find that he himself is the man whom they regard as the one who has done the most damage?

Mr. Dudley Williams: Who says it? Who is he?

Mr. Amery: I am in pretty regular contact with the leaders of the industry. It is possible that they are very diplomatic because they are sure that we are going to win the next election, but they certainly do not speak in the kind of terms which the right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) has suggested. I quite agree with the right hon. Gentleman that there could be and should be a difference between legitimate criticism and knocking, but I fail to notice the distinction in the spokesmen of the party opposite.

Heathrow and Gatwick

Sir A. V. Harvey: asked the Minister of Aviation what plans he has for the future development of Heathrow and Gatwick.

Mr. Marten: Our policy is to develop both airports to their fullest capacity. We reckon that a third airport for London will be required in the early 1970s. The plans for Heathrow involve the construction

of piers from the passenger buildings, a second short-haul passenger terminal, a new freight area, runway extensions, additional car parking facilities and the redevelopment of the Bath Road frontage. At Gatwick we are doubling the size of the terminal building and extending the runway. Our plans for Gatwick include the construction of an office block over the terminal building, apron and car park extensions, a second runway and a second maintenance area.

Sir A. V. Harvey: While appreciating that the long-term plans will go a considerable way to meet the widespread dissatisfaction about the amenities at London Airport, may I ask my hon. Friend whether he will take into account that this year they are considerably worse than last year—the congestion and lack of space and capacities? Will my hon. Friend take remedial action right away to give passengers at London Airport the reasonable services which they are not getting at the moment?

Mr. Marten: We constantly have this question under review and I go to London Airport from time to time to look at these matters; but it is true to say that the number of people going through London Airport increases greatly each year.

Mr. H. Hynd: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether plans for developments include the provision of retractable gangways such as have been in operation in American airports for a number of years?

Mr. Marten: If the hon. Member is referring to the aero-bridge which joins the aeroplane to the pier, that is a question for the airlines. I understand that B.O.A.C., for example, hopes to bring these into operation as soon as possible.

Mr. Doughty: When will the new runway be completed, and will it enable four-engined jet aircraft to take off fully loaded?

Mr. Marten: I cannot give the completion date. The plans have not been finalised, but I imagine that when they are the runway will cater for modern jets to take off fully loaded.

Eagle Airways

Mr. Rankin: asked the Minister of Aviation to what extent British European Airways in appealing against the decision of the Air Transport Licensing Board regarding the air service licence granted to Eagle Airways for the Glasgow route based their appeal on Section 2(2,c) of the Civil Aviation (Licensing) Act, 1960; and what inquiries he made about the terms and conditions of service of the employees of Eagle Airways.

Mr. J. Amery: This was not an issue in the appeal and so I had no occasion to make any such inquiries.

Mr. Rankin: Is not it the case that Section 2(2,c), which I mention in the Question, lays on the Board the need to consider whether an applicant takes unfair advantage over other operators? Has the right hon. Gentleman looked into the terms and conditions of employment of pilots in B.E.A. as compared with those employed by Eagle Airways? Is he aware that the senior pilots of B.E.A. are paid £1,000 a year more than those of Eagle Airways, and that the flying hours and duty hours of B.E.A. are much shorter than those of Eagle Airways? Does not the Minister realise that this is a case of defying the conditions of the Civil Aviation (Licensing) Act? Can he say whether or not the Air Transport Licensing Board took into consideration these facts when it granted Eagle Airways permission to fly between London and Glasgow?

Mr. Amery: I am sure that this matter has been considered very carefully. In licensing Eagle Airways on this route in 1961 the Board said that it was satisfied that Eagle Airways was complying with the criteria in Section 2(2,a-c). In appealing in December, 1961, against the licensing of Eagle Airways on this route, B.E.A. did not quote Section 2(2,c) among its grounds of appeal and, therefore, the matter has not been formally presented to me. It is significant that the Board said that Eagle Airways was complying with the criteria when the Board made its decision and that B.E.A. did not quote these arguments in its appeal against Eagle Airways. After all, those are the two parties principally concerned.

Ferranti Limited

Mr. Frank Allaun: asked the Minister of Aviation when he now expects to receive the report of Sir John Lang's Committee on the Ferranti Bloodhound contract; and when it will be published.

Mr. J. Amery: Sir John Lang has been pressed to produce his report as soon as possible. While accepting the need for speed, he has stated that it will not be possible to make the first part of the report, which deals with the Ferranti profit, available to the Government before the second half of July. It will then be published as soon as possible. The second part of the report, on organisation and procedure, will not be available until later this year.

Mr. Allaun: As this Parliament ends for good next month, may I ask whether this means that there will be no possibility of the House discussing the Lang report: Will the Minister be prepared to accept the long-standing Parliamentary position that the Minister bears responsibility for what goes seriously wrong in his Department? Lastly, since the Lang investigations started, has Ferranti made any offer to repay the excessive profit?

Mr. Amery: The hon. Member has asked a number of questions. I hope and believe that it will be possible for the House to have the Lang report before the House rises. I had undertaken to the House that Sir John would make it available by June but this was before Ferranti agreed to open all its papers to Sir John. The bulk of these is pretty considerable. It will, therefore, take slightly longer than I thought, but I still hope that it will be possible for the House to have the report before we rise, and this should give some opportunity for discussion of it. The other part of the hon. Member's supplementary question would best form the subject matter of a separate Question.

Mr. Diamond: Is not it the case that the new information which will be made available to the Lang Committee, and which will be helpful to that Committee and in due course helpful to the House, is additional to the information which


was first expected to come from that Committee? Is not it the case that the Committee is concerned with matters within the Ministry and not specifically with the precise £ s. d. of the profits of an individual company? Would it not, therefore, be beneficial to the House to be told in an interim report whether the Ministry Department over which the present Minister has control has carried out its duties efficiently or not?

Mr. Amery: I should have thought that the hon. Member, for whom I have the greatest respect, is misrepresenting the wishes of the House in this matter. I thought that the first thing that the House wanted to get down to was how the Ferranti profit arose, what went wrong, and an analysis of this particular case. Obviously we are all very concerned whether there are some general lessons to be learned from this, but I thought that the first thing with which we were all concerned, and certainly about which the Government were most concerned, was to find out what happened in this particular case. That is why I was so very anxious to get Ferranti to show all its papers to Sir John Lang. I had hoped at the time of the recent debate that when I was able to assure the House that Sir John Lang would have all the papers the anxieties that remained in the minds of hon. Members opposite would be at least postponed until that inquiry was completed. At least some hon. Members felt that Sir John's report would not be worth much unless he had access to all the books. Now that he is to have access I should have thought that his report on Ferranti would be of the very greatest value. The other matters are of equal importance but of a long-term character and in no way affecting the credit of the Government.

Blue Streak (Launching Project)

Mr. Cronin: asked the Minister of Aviation if he will make a statement on the launching of Blue Streak from Woomera; and if he will indicate his further plans with regard to this project.

Mr. J. Amery: The E.L.D.O. Convention came into force on 29th February, 1964, but since November 1961 an agreed programme of work has been in progress in member countries.
A first attempt to fire the Blue Streak was made on Monday last week but was frustrated by weather. A second attempt on the Thursday had to be postponed because of a minor defect in an electronic component. By the time this was repaired, the weather had again deteriorated. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Do not knock the project.
A third attempt was made yesterday, at which I was present. The count-down went satisfactorily to within three seconds of launch, when a negative signal on the checking-out system brought the firing to a halt. It has now been definitely established that automatic stop action was initiated by check-out equipment when one of the break-up system receivers, which is located on the far side of the rocket from the ground transmitter, ceased to indicate required response to transmissions. As examination has revealed no faults in either ground or rocket equipment, the authorities at Woomera have come to the conclusion that this receiver dropped out owing to fall in signal strength caused by irregular transmission conditions which are known technically as anomalous propagation. There is evidence in support of this view from the behaviour of other equipment. Steps are being taken to ensure that such effects on the receiver in question will not again cause stop. The next firing attempt is planned for Friday, 5th June, that is, Friday this week.
The first firing of the complete rocket is scheduled for the autumn of 1966.

Mr. Cronin: Are not these technical delays rather disappointing, after the expenditure of £100 million and years of work on the project? Is not the Minister aware that there is widespread disappointment among British scientists that it is not a purely British launcher development? Is he delaying and restraining British scientific effort in this respect purely to ingratiate himself with the Common Market countries?

Mr. Amery: In suggesting that we should be worried about these postponements, the hon. Gentleman entirely misunderstands the nature of rocket development. The Black Knight programme, about which a great deal less has been said, encountered a great many difficulties of this kind. The first two Atlases blew


up on the pad in the United States, and so did the first Thor. The kind of difficulties we have encountered so far have been weather for the best part of last week and two minor defects in the electronic components. There has been no question of any failure of the test, and I am personally confident that the test will show, and show quite soon, that the Hawker Siddeley-Rolls Royce designs are valid and that the telemetric and radar observation facilities at Woomera are valid.
The hon. Gentleman will realise that one of the reasons why the rocket has not been launched over the past weeks is not that it could not be but that, with the cloud cover as it was, it was not possible to follow the rocket in all its phases, and the value of the test would be greatly reduced unless we had absolutely clear sky for the occasion. We had absolutely clear sky yesterday. I was there. We thought that it would go off, and the test went down to 3 seconds count-down, but, as I have said, a minor electronic defect postponed it. I know of no basic reason why it should not work next week, but time alone will show whether I am right or not.
As to the morale of our scientists, I was with them on the spot yesterday. It remains extremely high.

Mr. Shinwell: May we have an assurance that the right hon. Gentleman is not to pay a second visit to Woomera? At the same time, will he inform the House—this is very important—what was the cost of his visit to Woomera and how long he remained there? Will he also inform the House what this device is intended to achieve? Is it to be part of the British independent nuclear deterrent, or what is its purpose? Is it not, in fact, going to prove just a white elephant?

Mr. Amery: My visit to Woomera, which was, indeed, long overdue—I tried to go there a year ago—was only a part of a visit I was paying to my colleague Mr. Alan Fairhall, the Australian Minister of Supply, many of whose functions overlap with mine. I took the occasion to go to Woomera. I heard that the launch was likely to take place, so I tried to be present at it.
As to the incidental expense of my additional time at Woomera, I cannot measure this at the moment, but it would be very small.
As to the purpose of Blue Streak, the concept is that, together with our French, German, Dutch, Belgian, Italian and Australian friends, we should be able to put a payload into orbit for commercial or scientific purposes, as may seem best to the Governments concerned. What we are trying to do at the moment is to develop the launcher. Blue Streak is to be the first stage of this launcher, and the Woomera range, with all the facilities built up by Australia and Britain over the last 12 years and more, is to be the essential testing ground for this experiment.

B.O.A.C. (Trooping Contracts)

Dr. Bray: asked the Minister of Aviation if he will allow the British Overseas Airways Corporation to submit tenders for trooping contracts.

Mr. Marten: My right hon. Friend has nothing to add to the reply to the Question by the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Bence) on 15th April, 1964.

Dr. Bray: Does not the hon. Gentleman feel that this is an aspect of airline operation which needs rationalisation? Does he think it sensible for B.O.A.C. to be flying planes only half full over routes for which trooping contracts are being let but for which it is not allowed to tender?

Mr. Marten: I think that the hon. Gentleman is referring to ad hoc trooping rather than long-term trooping contracts. The value of ad hoc trooping work is by no means negligible to B.O.A.C., and I understand that, over the past 12 months, B.O.A.C. has secured contracts of this kind worth the best part of £1 million.

Mr. Lee: Is not this as disgraceful as the Minister of Transport's attitude in refusing to allow British Railways to tender for trucks and other things? We are not asking for a monopoly of this kind of work for the nationalised Corporations, but is not the hon. Gentleman aware that, where large amounts of public money are involved, it is right and proper that the two Corporations should have the right to tender along with the independent aircraft operators? Will he ask his right hon. Friend to stop "knocking" the nationalised Air Corporations to the tune of hundreds of thousands of £s of public money?

Mr. Marten: There is no question of "knocking" here. As the hon. Gentleman knows very well, this goes back in history to the Civil Aviation Licensing Act. The independents attach great importance to these trooping contracts and, until they have gained enough in the way of licensing under the Civil Aviation Licensing Act, we cannot justify a change in the present trooping arrangements. But my right hon. Friend has the matter constantly under review.

Civil Aircraft Projects

Dr. Bray: asked the Minister of Aviation what is now the policy of his Department towards the manufacture of civil aircraft primarily for a British specification rather than for a world market.

Mr. Marten: Under the policy announced in February 1960, the Government are willing to consider affording financial support for promising civil aircraft projects. In considering applications, full account is taken of the export potential of the projects as well as the extent to which they meet domestic requirements.

Dr. Bray: Does not the hon. Gentleman think that the experience with the VC 10 suggests that the initial specification for an aircraft needs very careful watching in relation to world markets and that any pressure by the Government on the aircraft industry to manufacture to a purely British specification would in the future be a mistake?

Mr. Marten: It is too early to judge as regards the VC 10, until we have seen it in airline service for a little while, when, I hope, orders will come in.

Mr. Cronin: Could not the Government give the British aircraft industry much more help in the export market if they extended more credit facilities to it?

Mr. Marten: The Government, in principle, match the credit facilities of foreign countries in exports.

Mr. Lubbock: From his recent visit to the Biggin Hill Air Fair, the hon. Gentleman will be aware of the efforts being made by Beagle Aircraft to sell its very promising light aircraft in export markets. Could the hon. Gentleman say what help has been given by the Government to this project?

Mr. Marten: The R.A.F. has purchased 20 Beagle 206 aircraft, which I think has been a great help in getting the 206 off the ground. I know that Beagle Aircraft is making a very determined effort to sell this splendid little machine overseas.

Oral Answers to Questions — BALLOT FOR NOTICES OF MOTIONS

Brucellosis

Mr. Farr: The hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Kitson) has asked me to give notice that on Friday, 19th June, he will call attention to the problems of brucellosis, and move a Resolution.

Automation

Mr. Hiley: On behalf of the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Curran), I beg to give notice that on Friday, 19th June, he will call attention to the problems and opportunities of automation, and move a Resolution.

Property-Owning Democracy

Mr. Graham Page: I myself beg to give notice that on Friday, 19th June, I shall call attention to the rapid progress made towards the aim of a property-owning democracy, and move a Resolution.

BILLS PRESENTED

FISHERY LIMITS

Bill to extend the British fishery limits and amend the definition of "sea-fishing" in the Sea Fisheries Act 1883; presented by Mr. Christopher Soames; supported by Mr. Brooke, Mr. Noble, the Attorney-General, Mr. Peter Thomas, and Mr. James Scott-Hopkins; read the First time; to be read a Second time tomorrow and to be printed. [Bill 151.]

AREAS OF SPECIAL SCIENTIFIC INTEREST

Bill to make provision for the better protection of areas of special scientific interest; and for purposes connected therewith, presented by Mr. Marcus Kimball; supported by Sir Jocelyn Lucas, Mr. Prior, Mr. Vane, Mr. John Biffen, Mr. Timothy Kitson, Mr. Angus Maude, Sir James Duncan, Mrs. Evelyn Emmet, Mr. Ian Gilmour, Mr. John Farr, and Mr. Alan Brown; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 12th June, and to be printed. [Bill 152.]

FRIENDLY SOCIETIES (MEMBERSHIP OF TRADE UNIONS)

3.33 p.m.

Mr. John Diamond: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to invalidate rules of friendly societies discriminating against membership of trade unions.
I hope that the House will not think me presumptuous in asking for a facility which I have been accorded on two previous occasions, namely, permission to introduce a Bill dealing with a matter which. I believe, has the sympathy of both sides of the House—the important principle of the liberty of the subject and, in particular, the liberty of an individual to join a trade union of his choice.
I want to make it clear that I have an interest in this matter as a member of a trade union—the Association of Supervisory Staffs, Executives and Technicians. This is the union particularly affected by the Bill which I seek leave to introduce. I further hope that, inasmuch as there are members of this union on both sides of the House, I shall receive this courtesy, particularly because the Prime Minister has been good enough to write a letter, to which I will refer shortly, supporting this general principle.
Supposing that we were in a situation in which my right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson) found himself unable to resist the demand of the people that he should take over this distinguished office, there is no reason to believe that he would be less sympathetic, since he, too, is a member of the same union.
The purpose of the proposed Bill is simply to invalidate any rule in a friendly society which makes it impossible for a member of that society to join a trade union of his choice. Since there is only one friendly society of which I know which incorporates such a rule, it follows that I should describe the society in some detail. It is known as the Foremen and Staff Mutual Benefit Society. It was established in 1899 as a friendly society to provide sick benefits and pensions for its members. There are two classes of member—one the employer and the other the employee, being a foreman or a person

holding a position of trust or employed on the management, or in a technical office or commercial capacity. These are the kinds of employments referred to.
If this friendly society were acting as a friendly society pure and simple, I should not be troubling the House. But this is not the case, because the society provides in its rules that a member who joins a trade union shall automatically cease to be a member of the society, or, alternatively, shall not be allowed to join a trade union, and once he ceases to be a member of the society all benefits are lost—not only the contributions made by the employer, but the contributions made by the employee. This is a severe deterrent, or, if one wishes a stronger word, open blackmail, against any supervisory staff wishing to join a trade union.
Had this occurred in 1899, one might have understood it, but the particular offending rile was amended last year, in 1963, when it was brought up to date under an executive council recommendation for
a strengthening of the trade union rules.
As I have indicated, this provided that any ordinary member—that is, a supervisory employee—who, after admission to the society, joins a trade union
shall immediately resign from the Society.
and that he shall
cease to have any claim on the funds of the Society either by way of benefits or return of contributions or premiums or any part thereof or otherwise,
and he shall be liable to expulsion from the society.
This is obviously a grave offence against the liberty of the subject in a matter which we all hold very dear. At present, when certain law cases are being considered, people feel particularly sensitive about this matter. It is not surprising, therefore, that the secretary of my union, A.S.S.E.T., wrote to the Prime Minister drawing his attention to the situation and received the following extremely helpful reply from 10, Downing Street, dated 22nd April.
I omit the first paragraph, which is purely introductory. The second paragraph reads:
The Government attach great importance to the principle that workers should be free


to join trade unions. They apply this principle in relation to their own employees. The principle is also applied to employment on Government contract by Clause 4 of the Fair Wages Resolution which provides that contractors must"—
and I repeat "must"—
recognise the right of their workpeople to be members of a trade union. As you know, the Resolution lays down that any question whether the requirements of the Resolution are being observed must be referred to an independent tribunal if it cannot be disposed of in other ways 
We have, therefore, the most authoritative statement from the Prime Minister's office on policy and providing for the method of solving the problem of disposing of a complaint, namely, by reference to an independent tribunal.
However, I now wish to refer to a report in The Times dated 20th April, 1964. A reference by the Ministry of Labour of just such a dispute was made to a tribunal, namely, the Industrial Court, and, unfortunately, the right of the Industrial Court to settle the problem was challenged by the respondent, that is, the employer in question. The reference had been made by the Minister of Labour and the firm in question denied the right of the Court to settle the dispute.
Therefore, we are in the situation that the Prime Minister has said that Government policy is to give freedom to any employee to join a trade union but that

there is an organisation which prevents a man in a supervisory capacity joining a union. The machinery under the Fair Wages Contract, which is a Government document, has been denied and the Court has not come to a conclusion about it. Therefore, one must find some other solution, and the only other solution is to provide by means of a one-Clause Bill that any friendly society which incorporates in its rules a clause to the effect that a member shall not join a union—or, to be more precise, that if he joins a union, he will lose all the benefits which he would otherwise have enjoyed, which comes to the same thing—should be invalidated.
I seek the leave of the House to bring in a short Bill which will have that effect.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Diamond, Mr. J. Silverman, Mr. H. Butler, Mr. Rankin, Mr. Malcolm MacMillan, Mr. Parkin, Mr. Swingler, Mr. Stonehouse, and Mr. Ledger.

FRIENDLY SOCIETIES (MEMBERSHIP OF TRADE UNIONS)

Bill to invalidate rules of friendly societies discriminating against membership of trade unions, presented accordingly and read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 12th June, and to be printed [Bill 153].

Orders of the Day — EMERGENCY LAWS (RE-ENACTMENTS AND REPEALS) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

3.42 p.m.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Alan Green): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
The main significance of the Bill lies in the fact that it brings to an end the last few of the Defence Regulations as such. It is only a few months short of 25 years since both Houses of Parliament, on 24th August, 1939, passed within the space of a few hours all stages of the Emergency Powers (Defence) Act. That was the Act under which the Defence Regulations were made and which gave the Government the widest possible powers over almost every aspect of the life of the country.
The other day, I looked at the volume of the Defence (General) Regulations—which is the largest and the principal series of Defence Regulations—as they stood in the middle of the war at March, 1943, and I noticed that they ran to well over 300 pages of print. The Defence Regulations themselves were, of course, only the beginning of that story. The Statutory Rules and Orders which were issued under Defence Regulations and other emergency powers were vastly more numerous. Those issued in 1943 alone made a printed volume of over 2,000 pages. This remarkable chapter in our legislative history is coming to an end.
Hon. Members may remember, in broad outline if not in detail, the course of events since the end of the war. After V.E. day, quite a large proportion of the Defence Regulations were revoked within a matter of months, but many of the widest and most important Regulations were continued in force by the Supplies and Services (Transitional Powers) Act, 1945, and by the Emergency Laws (Transitional Provisions) Act, 1946.
The purposes for which Defence Regulations might be used were extended by the Supplies and Services (Extended Purposes) Act, 1947, to cover the peacetime economic needs of the country as judged by the Government of the day.

The statutes provided for the life of the Defence Regulations to extend to December, 1950. and thereafter for further periods of not more than one year at a time by Order in Council.
Within this statutory framework, there has been over the past 15 years a vast reduction in the number of controls and orders of all sorts, a process which, it is only fair to say, was begun by the party opposite and which we accelerated after 1951 as the economy gained strength.
It may be remembered that in 1958 we undertook a thorough review of the whole subject and we set out the results in detail in a White Paper, Cmnd. 563. We decided that the time had come to sweep away the emergency legislation—that is to say, the Emergency Powers (Defence) Act, 1939, and, with minor exceptions, the Acts of 1945 to 1947, to which I have referred. We undertook instead to provide fresh legislative authority far such powers as were still required and to put a strict limit on their use.
There were at that time 13 substantive Defence Regulations still in force. We decided that five of them could best be embodied in separate legislation, that three could lapse without replacement and that the other five, to whose contents I will come presently, should be retained for a further limited period. Our proposals for this purpose were presented to the House in November, 1958, in the Bill which became the Emergency Laws (Repeal) Act, 1959.
In addition to continuing those five Defence Regulations, the 1959 Act continued in force certain temporary powers which had been conferred upon the Ministry of Supply—powers, for example, to produce articles required for the defence of Commonwealth countries and power, which had later been transferred to the Board of Trade, to trade in jute and jute products. The Act also covered the powers under the Ships and Aircraft (Transfer Restriction Act), 1939, to control the transfer or mortgage of British ships in the interests of national defence.
The life of the 1959 Act was limited to five years. As a result, it is due to expire on 31st December next. We have accordingly been considering which, if any, of these various powers should be allowed to lapse and which need to


be continued either permanently or for a further limited period. We have regarded the question throughout as a practical one and not one which could sensibly be approached in any doctrinaire spirit. We have examined each case on its merits and considered whether the retention of the powers in question could properly be regarded as necessary in present-day conditions.
We came to the conclusion that there was one power, potentially a very wide one, which it would be right to allow to lapse at the end of this year. That is the power under Defence Regulation 55 and 55AB under which the Government can control the price and supply of any article if a shortage has arisen, or is expected to arise as a result of an emergency overseas and if that shortage is such as to threaten either our national defence or the welfare of the community.
We are not proposing to give up these powers without putting anything in their place. In a country as dependent as ours upon imported fuel, food and raw materials, that might be rash. The House will remember that we are awaiting Royal Assent to a Bill, which we considered a few weeks ago, to amend the Emergency Powers Act, 1920. This will enable the Government of the day to control the supply and distribution of food, fuel, light and other necessities in the event of an emergency arising, whether at home or overseas, which is likely to deprive the community of the main essentials of life.
These powers are less widely drawn than in the existing Defence Regulation powers and Parliament is given greater control over their use, as is clearly right in peace-time conditions. We think, however, that these new powers go as far as is necessary in practice or as could be justified in permanent legislation.
The Emergency Powers Bill to which I have referred deals also with another of the Defence Regulations powers which has been continued for five years by the 1959 Act. This was the power under Defence (Armed Forces) Regulation 6 to employ troops on agricultural or other urgent work of national importance. It is now being made permanent.
There was one other set of powers continued under the 1959 Act which we

thought could be dealt with most appropriately in separate legislation. This is the group of powers, which I mentioned earlier, originally conferred on the Minister of Supply, and now on the Minister of Aviation, and they relate to the supply of defence materials and experimental work. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Aviation is at present considering which of these powers he should ask Parliament to continue, and he will be putting his proposals to the House shortly.
For the rest, we thought that it would be most convenient to present our proposals relating to these various powers in a single Bill, despite the fact that several of my right hon. Friends are concerned. The alternative course of putting forward ten or so short, separate Bills would, I think, have been somewhat confusing, and it would have meant a good deal of duplication of effort since many of the ancillary provisions are common to most or all of the different powers. The House will have observed that we have spelled out the powers afresh and have not sought to retain them by reference to preceding Acts.
This brings me to the content of the Bill. There is a general point which I should explain: in no place have we added to or widened the existing statutory powers. In every case we have either retained them as they stand at present or have restricted them.
Clause 1 continues the Government's power to regulate the terms of hire-purchase and credit-sale agreements as one means of restricting the growth of excessive credit in the economy. As hon. Members know, the control operates in practice on the size of the down payment and on the period allowed for payment of the balance. Except for intervals in 1954 and 1958, the control has been imposed since 1952 with varying degrees of severity, dependent on the economic situation.
It is an essential requirement of the Government's economic policy that the rate at which total demand grows should be containable within fairly narrow limits. Demand must be allowed to grow fast enough to maintain a high level of employment but not so fast that the value of the currency at home or abroad is put in danger. The ability to forecast and


diagnose current trends has been improving in recent years, but we cannot ignore the possibility that, to keep demand under adequate control, measures may sometimes have to be taken quickly, possibly on a substantial scale, between Budgets.
Moreover, even if the growth of demand could be counted on to remain within the range which is safe under normal conditions, it is always possible that unforeseen events at home or overseas may on, occasion require rapid action. Hire-purchase control, of course, is only one of the ways in which the Government can regulate demand. But monetary measures tend to be slow working, and fiscal measures are not always sufficiently flexible.
My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer fully recognises that hire-purchase controls have certain disadvantages. But they possess the important advantages that they can be used at any time and have a quick effect on demand. For these reasons, we regard the power to control hire-purchase terms as an important weapon in our economic armoury, and we propose that the statutory provisions should be made permanent.
Clause 2 continues certain exchange control powers which experience shows are needed to complete the powers available under the Exchange Control Act, 1947. The additional powers are needed to prevent what could become an unacceptable loss to the foreign currency and gold reserves of the United Kingdom.
The Exchange Control Act provides virtually no powers to control transactions within the sterling area, and the control which it gives over assets in the United Kingdom held by residents outside the sterling area does not cover gold or Treasury bills. The existing powers used for this purpose depend upon Defence (Finance) Regulation 2A, which makes no distinction between countries in the sterling area and others. Clause 2 makes these powers permanent.
The power to control Treasury bills and gold held by residents of countries outside the sterling area is not currently being used, but is needed in order to be able to block such assets quickly in emergencies. It is desirable that such power should continue to be available without having to call on special emergency legislation.
Powers to control transactions within the sterling area are at present used in two ways. First, the existence of a free currency market in Hong Kong makes it necessary to regulate the use in the United Kingdom of Hong Kong assets. A direction was made in 1950 for this purpose. These assets may be used for ordinary day-to-day trading, but the control prevents their use for irregular arbitrage transactions. Secondly, since 1957 the disposal in the United Kingdom of foreign currency securities by residents in other sterling area countries has been controlled. This effectively prevents a loss to the reserves from the acquisition of foreign currency securities through the free markets in certain sterling area countries.
Clause 3 has two main and closely related purposes. Subsection (1) gives the Board of Trade certain of the powers needed to prevent the supply to the U.S.S.R., China and other Communist countries of strategic goods and materials. Our international obligations require us, in our own interests and those of our allies, to prevent these goods from reaching such countries. The export of strategic goods from the United Kingdom is controlled by the Board of Trade using powers under the Import, Export and Customs Powers (Defence) Act, 1939.
But these powers are not in themselves sufficient to enable us to carry out our international obligations. Besides controlling the supply of strategic equipment to Communist countries from the United Kingdom, it is also necessary to prevent the sale to these countries of strategic goods located in third countries.
In addition, to complete the international control system the Board of Trade issue import certificates which enable other participating countries to permit the export of strategic goods to the United Kingdom with the assurance that the goods will not be transshipped or re-exported by the British buyer to a forbidden destination. The Clause will enable the Board of Trade to continue to exercise those powers which are at present exercised under Defence Regulation 55(1)(a)
Subsection (2) gives my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport power to prevent the building for foreign


owners of ships which are either embargoed under agreements made by the Government or which are of a type which in the interests of defence policy at the time should not pass into the possession of a particular foreign Power. The particular types of vessel to which the latter restriction will apply will vary with circumstances and cannot be defined in advance. The powers are exercised by means of a licensing system. Shipbuilders are given general licences to build all kinds of vessels for United Kingdom and Commonwealth owners. Only when they wish to build a ship of 100 gross tons or over for a foreign Power do they have to obtain an individual licence. It is a system which I understand, in practice, causes little trouble to shipbuilders.
One hesitates to assume that the powers given by this Clause will be wanted in perpetuity. On the other hand, we must keep—and show that we are keeping—the powers necessary to carry out our international obligations. For this reason, subsections (4) and (5) provide that these powers shall initially continue in force for five years and that subsequently they shall be renewable for further periods of up to five years by Order in Council, subject to affirmative Resolution of both Houses.
Clause 4 makes permanent the present powers under which my right hon. Friends the Minister of Health and Secretary of State for Scotland by means of Orders provide a welfare foods service for the benefit of mothers and young children in Great Britain. Originally introduced as an emergency service in war-time, the scheme continued after the end of the war and has become part of the normal welfare services for mothers and young children.
Under the scheme, as the House knows, expectant or nursing mothers and children up to 5 can get one pint of milk a day, liquid or dried, at a reduced price. In addition, they can buy concentrated orange juice, cod liver oil and vitamin tablets at roughly cost price. Mothers and children of families in need can get tokens entitling them to milk and other welfare foods free. I doubt whether there is any Member of the House who will not agree that it is right

to regard this as a proper normal peace-time service, and that it is, therefore, right to put the necessary statutory powers on a permanent basis.
Clause 5 confers permanent powers on my right hon. Friends the Minister of Health and the Secretary of State for Scotland to control the maximum prices of medical supplies required for the purposes of the National Health Service Acts and to obtain information that they may require for this purpose from firms concerned with such supplies. These powers are necessary in those circumstances which arise in the National Health Service where the Health Departments are not the direct purchasers of medical supplies, but their cost is, nevertheless, borne from moneys voted by this House. The hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) has a great deal of experience looking into these matters.
For example, drugs are prescribed by family doctors and dispensed by chemists under the National Health Service who are then reimbursed by the Exchequer. The maximum prices charged to chemists by their suppliers are regulated by the Voluntary Price Regulation Scheme agreed with the Association of British Pharmaceutical Industry, but this voluntary scheme needs the backing of statutory powers to make it effective in the event of the refusal of a firm, possibly one which is not a member of the Association, to conform to its provisions or to provide the information upon which negotiations depend.
The powers now being made permanent are at present contained in Defence Regulation 55AB(1)(c) and Defence Regulation 55AA. They have never been used, and my right hon. Friends hope that it will not be necessary to use them. They do, however, believe that it is necessary to have them in reserve for the reasons I have given. They do not wish to retain the powers in Defence Regulation 55AA(1) itself to obtain information in respect of services required for the purposes of the National Health Service Acts. These powers are, therefore, being dropped.
The present powers extend to medical supplies generally, but as this is wider than is necessary they are now to be limited to medical supplies for the


National Health Services in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The competent authorities for this Clause are, as I have said, the Minister of Health and the Secretary of State for Scotland. For Northern Ireland, the powers are exercisable by the Secretary of State, who may, under Clause 21, delegate them as he considers proper to an appropriate authority in the Northern Ireland Government.
Clause 6 continues the present powers of my right hon. Friends the Minister of Agriculture and the Secretary of State for Scotland to control the prices to be charged for liquid milk, but it specifically limits the powers to the prescription of maximum prices. The present powers, which derive from Defence Regulation 55AB, are used only for this purpose. We propose to take powers to control maximum prices only.
Hon. Members may remember that the need to continue the price control of milk—the only food still subject to this control—was reviewed by an independent committee—the Thorold Committee—which reported in 1962 on the remuneration of milk distributors. In view of the concentration of most of the milk distributive trade in a few hands, the Committee recommended that price control should be continued for a further period after which the question should be reconsidered, in the light of changes in the price structure which, they hoped, would make possible greater competitiveness in the trade.
The Government have accepted this recommendation, and my right hon. Friends are considering, with the milk industry, the implementation of various changes recommended by the Committee. But, as the Committee foresaw, some time must pass before decontrol of retail prices can be considered, and we are, therefore, continuing these powers, in the first instance for five years, to the end of 1969. The power may be further continued beyond that date, for periods of up to five years, by Order in Council, again subject to the affirmative Resolution of both Houses.
The next group of Clauses—that is, Clauses 7 to 15—together with the First Schedule, contain provisions supplemental to the substantive provisions which I have described in Clauses 1 to 6. I will not go through these Clauses in

detail, because I do not think that any questions of policy or controversy arise on them. These are all provisions which we have thought it necessary to carry over from the disappearing emergency legislation and Defence Regulations. To take a single example, Clause 12, dealing with offences by corporations, follows the wording of Defence Regulation 91.
But I should make it clear that we have not just written the various Defence Regulation provisions into the Bill blindly. We have, in fact, looked very carefully at each provision to see whether it is really necessary to keep it or whether it could be either dropped altogether or narrowed in scope. In some cases we decided that the power could safely be allowed to lapse. For example, paragraph 1 of the Third Schedule to the 1959 Act provided that any Order made under any Defence Regulation should override any inconsistency with other Statutes or Instruments. So sweeping a provision seemed to us neithter necessary nor appropriate in peacetime legislation, and we propose that it should lapse. In other cases we have cut back the scope of the Defence Regulations provisions. For example, the powers of entry and search under warrant issued by a justice of the peace, which are proposed in the First Schedule to the Bill, are much more limited than the present Defence Regulation powers of entry and inspection of premises on a warrant issued by a departmental official.
So much for Part I of the Bill, which is wholly concerned with powers at present exercised under Defence Regulations. Part II of the Bill continues in force two further sets of powers.
Clause 16 continues after the end of 1964 the powers of the Minister of Transport to control the transfer and mortgage of second-hand British ships. These powers were originally granted by the Ships and Aircraft (Transfer Restriction) Act, 1939. They were very wide in scope—as befitted wartime powers—but the 1959 Act severely restricted their scope and limited their life to the end of 1964. These powers are complementary to those concerning new ship construction, and to the Board of Trade's powers of control over strategic goods outside the United Kingdom, both of which I described under Clause 3 of


the Bill. We propose that they should be continued on exactly the same basis as the powers contained in Clause 3; that is, to the end of 1969, with provision for extension for further periods of up to five years by an Order in Council subject to affirmative Resolution of both Houses.
As they are at present administered, the exercise of the powers is not burdensome either to the Government or to the shipping industry; and it is our policy, as it is with other items on the strategic embargo, to keep the restrictions enforced by these powers to the minimum.
Finally, Clause 17 provides for the continuation of certain of the Board of Trade's powers in relation to jute goods. The power to trade in raw jute, which has not been exercised since 1954, is being given up, as is also the power to produce jute goods. This Clause provides for the retention, until the end of 1969, of the remaining powers to acquire and dispose of jute bags, jute cloth and jute yarn.
As the House knows, public trading in jute goods, through the Board of Trade Jute Control, is the means used to protect the jute industry in the interest of employment in Dundee and district, where the industry is concentrated. A good deal has been done, and is continuing to be done, to diversify Dundee's industrial life—and this is the right way to solve the problem—but there is still a need to provide some protection for the jute industry in the interest of local employment.
That is the last of the Clauses of substance in the Bill, and there is little more that I need say. As is explained in the Financial Memorandum on the front of the Bill, the Bill gives the Government no powers additional to those which they have already, and it will accordingly involve no additional expenditure. Indeed, the only item in the Bill which involves any substantial expenditure is the Welfare Foods Scheme.
I trust that the House will accept the Bill in the spirit in which it is presented—that is, as a realistic and practical way of dealing after the present year with these last survivors of the Defence Regulations and with certain other temporary powers.

4.10 p.m.

Mr. Douglas Houghton: I am sure that the House is obliged to the Financial Secretary to the Treasury for his careful explanation of the Clauses of the Bill. No one listening to the hon. Gentleman would think that he was lighting another bonfire. Perhaps this time it is only a little one. It is difficult to rekindle the flames on the ashes of the past.
The Measure in 1958 was a very different proposition. Passed in March, 1959, it was called a repeal Act. This is a repeal and re-enactment Bill. As the hon. Gentleman has pointed out, this Bill or some alternative action is necessary before the end of the year because a number of powers in the 1959 Act run out on 31st December, and unless something were done they would automatically lapse, which would not be the wish of hon. Members on either side of the House.
There is no guile in the hon. Gentleman. That is one of his most engaging characteristics. There is not very much in me, but I am bound to be a little political in my introductory remarks. After the circumstances in which the previous Bill was introduced, I am sure that on these benches we shall be forgiven for looking at this Bill a little more closely than might otherwise be the case. Had the General Election taken place this month, as was generally expected, the Government would probably have left the Bill to the incoming Government. There would have been time for a new Government, whether formed from the benches opposite or from this side of the House, to consider what they wanted to do about the 1959 Act before the end of the year.
But with the postponement of the General Election until the autumn, I am charitable enough to assume that Her Majesty's Government thought that it would be unfair to do nothing before the General Election and leave an incoming Government, almost certainly a Labour Government—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] It is no good hon. Members continuing to pretend that they are not on the way out. They are.

Sir Douglas Glover: Wait and see.

Mr. Houghton: I repeat—almost certainly a Labour Government, coming


in in the autumn, being left with this question of what to do about the 1959 Act.
I think that the Government thought it would be considerate on their part to do something about that Act before the General Election. As I say, I am charitable enough to assume that that was in their mind. Why have the Government thought it necessary to introduce a Bill on these detailed lines instead of a holding operation, an extension of the date 31st December, 1964, by a single, small, one-Clause Bill that would at least have given the incoming Government time to think and act without being committed on the lines of the Bill before the House at the moment?
In 1958, when the previous Bill was introduced, the Government by a Motion of the House, extended the life of many of the controls covered by the Measure for a further period of 12 months, or the date of the passing of the Bill into law, whichever was the earlier. I recognise that no similar method of extending the life of the 1959 Act can be adopted this time. It would need legislation. The question I am putting to the Government is: why have they chosen to legislate in this detailed fashion so close to the end of this Parliament, instead of providing, as an interim measure, for the extension of the life of the 1959 Act, and giving the incoming Government the time and the opportunity to decide what they want to do about the future of these emergency powers?
I said a moment or two ago that we on these benches must be forgiven for a little suspicion about the time and circumstance in which these Bills come before the House. In November, 1958, when the previous Bill was introduced, I think that it will be generally agreed—I hope to have the assent of the Financial Secretary—that there was a Machiavellian touch about the way the Government acted. The Emergency Laws (Repeal) Act, introduced in November, 1958 and which became law in March, 1959, was described by the then Economic Secretary, now the Minister of Power, on 12th November, 1958, as follows:
The Bill is, therefore, an exercise in constitutional propriety.
That was just pious humbug, because the cat was let out of the bag by the

then Lord Privy Seal, now the Foreign Secretary, who, at the annual meeting of the Central Council of the National Union of Conservative and Unionist Associations, had said—I am quoting now from an account of his speech in column 426 of the OFFICIAL REPORT on 12th November—that the Bill was intended to prevent
a Socialist State being brought in, as it were, by the flick of a switch."—[OFFICAL REPORT, 12th November, 1958; Vol. 595, c. 415 and 426.]
The Times, to which we look for moral guidance in many matters these days, rebuked the Government for introducing a Bill with any such intention, because, they rightly pointed out, if a Socialist Government did come to power it would be by the will of the people, and an outgoing Government had no right to put any handicap or hindrance upon the activities of a freely-elected Government.
The circumstances in which this previous Bill was introduced led my right hon. and hon. Friends to vote against its Second Reading. We challenged some of its provisions in Committee and we voted against the Third Reading. I do not know what it is in the coincidence of arranging the business of the House that brings obscenity immediately after emergency powers Bills on two occasions. The Third Reading of the Emergency Laws (Repeal) Act on 16th December, 1958, was followed by a debate on obscenity, and this debate is to be followed by one on obscenity. Is this a sense of humour that the Leader of the House has acquired, or is it just coincidence? Whatever it may be, it is of interest to note how these things happen. It may be an association of ideas; I do not know.
This Bill, too, is being introduced in the last months of this Parliament. On the first occasion, the Government had from 1951 to 1958 to decide what they would do about emergency powers, and they decided to do something in the last months of the last Parliament. This time they have decided to do something—admittedly, in present circumstances they must do something—and they have decided to do it this way fully and completely in the last months of this Parliament.
I do not know whether the Government think that there is any political advantage in doing this now. I do not know whether they think that the headlines in some of the newspapers have been politcally helpful. The Times said:
Most wartime laws to end".
The Guardian said:
Emergency ends at last".
It may be that there are some unsuspecting people who think that the Tories are good for "knocking Whitehall in the eye" and "Down with bureaucracy" and all that sort of thing, but it would have been better had the Government introduced a holding operation instead of trying to legislate for the next Parliament at this late hour of this Parliament.
I now turn to the Bill and enter a protest. The introduction of the 1958 Bill was accompanied by a White Paper. No similar White Paper accompanied this Bill. The Explanatory Memorandum to the Bill is confined to a Financial Memorandum of only a few lines and figures. Yet in the newspapers, in The Times, for example, appeared a full-length account and explanation of the Bill's Clauses. Virtually the Financial Secretary's Second Reading speech was reproduced in The Times and in the Guardian there was a fairly full summary of the Bill's provisions.
I inquired where was to be found an explanation of the contents of the Bill. I was informed by the Library that there was no White Paper and no memorandum available to hon. Members, but there was a Press handout, a Lobby document given to the newspapers at the time of the publication of the Bill. Unfortunately, no copy of that was available. The Library got on to the Treasury; unfortunately, no copy was available. When the Treasury was asked if there was any hope of getting one by this afternoon, the reply was that there was no such hope. It is an outrageous scandal that Members of Parliament cannot even have an explanation of the Bill which we are to consider this afternoon, even though it was handed out to the Lobby several weeks ago. When is this nuisance to stop?
I will give this positive assurance to the House: under a Labour Government hon. Members will not be treated with this contempt. We will see that

hon. Members are better served than this. We are entitled to have before us any explanation which is available of legislation to be brought before the House. I have complained time and again about this, but nothing has been done. That is all I have to say about that, but I feel very deeply about it because it is an insult to the House. Why should newspapers be better served than hon. Members? Lobby? Forsooth! Hon. Members cannot even have a document addressed to them.
The hon. Gentleman has told us that the Bill is divided into three parts—powers to be given up, powers to be retained for a limited period and subject to renewal, and powers to be made permanent. Consideration of the Bill's Clauses may be undertaken with better advantage in Committee, when we can look at them more closely, but there are one or two comments which I should like to make now. As the hon. Gentleman has explained, to some extent the powers to be given up are to be replaced by alternative powers regarding the emergency in which the Government may be called upon to act to safeguard the essentials of life of the community.
Prompting me a few moments ago, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) suggested that I should ask the Government if they would kindly say what an emergency was. I suppose that an emergency is what Her Majesty's Government at any time think is an emergency—if there is a threat, if there is a danger or fear, it is in the judgment of the Government to act to use the powers which an emergency gives them.
On the powers to be continued temporarily or subject to Parliamentary control, the subject of jute will certainly receive close examination. It rather looks as though the Government are proposing for the time being to retain the power to buy and sell jute yarn, jute cloth and jute bags and to extend that power only to the end of 1969, subject to renewal, while the power to trade in raw jute is to lapse at the end of the year. I am not sufficiently acquainted with the jute industry to be able to say how important discarding the latter power is, though I notice that


it is said that it has not been used of late. My hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, East (Mr. G. M. Thomson) and my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Doig) will undoubtedly seek to catch your eye on this matter, Mr. Speaker.
Hire-purchase control is to be made permanent, along with a number of other very important provisions. We all recognise the significance of hire-purchase debt in the economy today and the need to retain power to regulate it, in conjunction with the other regulators of the economy which the Chancellor of the Exchequer may feel it important to have at his disposal; similarly with transactions in gold and securities.
I am sure that hon. Members on this side of the House agree that the power of control of welfare foods should be made permanent, though it rather looks as though, in practice, this is of greater significance in relation to welfare milk than orange juice and other welfare foods. A few years ago, the Minister of Health lifted the controlled price of orange juice and similar welfare foods, which are now issued at cost price. To that extent, I suppose, it constitutes a price control. We would agree that this control is now a built-in feature of our welfare services.
I now come to Health Service medical supplies. I feel rather ashamed to confess that I was unaware that this control existed. To think that I have gone through many hours of work as Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, grilling the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Health on this tiresome question of pharmaceutical services, drug prices, monopolies and the rest, without being able to produce the ace of trumps and ask him, point blank, "Why have you not used these powers to control the price of medical supplies?"
I have heard a great deal about the voluntary price regulation arrangements, which appear to have been more or less voluntary. Some of them have not been watertight, because there have been suppliers outside the scope of the agreement, and not long ago we were asking questions about the activities of certain firms who were outside the voluntary price regulation arrangements.
The House should not only confirm this as a permanent arrangement, but should ask the Minister when he is going to use these powers. Safeguards, precautions, and other forms of reserve power are important, and sometimes very influential, but it is surely no great credit to the Government that they have never been used if circumstances exist—and I rather believe that they did and do—when these powers should be used.
One of the most difficult things to explain to e Americans is this curious hybrid National Health Service which we have. They talk about socialised medicine, but we know that it is not socialised medicine really. It is private doctoring at public expense, and the weakness of the Ministry in keeping control of drug prices lies in the fact that in the normal course of events the order for the supply of goods is not given by the Ministry at all. It is given by the thousands of individual doctors in the Service. When they write out a prescription, they give an order on the account of the Ministry of Health to a private supplier, and that constitutes the main difficulty about price control in drugs, medicines, and appliances in the National Health Service.
I will not dwell any longer on this, because I do not want to go too deeply into the merits of the matter, but it is clearly a power which the Government should have. I think that it is for the Minister to consider when is the appropriate time, if not to use it, to pull it out of the drawer and to begin to finger it ostentatiously during the course of negotiations with the other side. That might save him having to use the power. If he brandishes it before people, it may be enough. Anyhow, one way or another, something has to be done to keep under control the price of drugs and all the monopoly tendencies in the world of medicine.
The maximum price of milk is another control to be written permanently into our law, and I think that the House will agree with that, too. It follows the recommendation of the Thorold Committee that the Government should continue to control the maximum retail price of milk, and recent circumstances have shown that that is a desirable power for the Government to have.
That, I think, will do for my initial review of the provisions of the Bill. I


hope that I have not made too much mischief in the minds of hon. Gentlemen opposite, but they cannot expect to get away with a completely clean bill of health in respect of emergency laws, having regard to the very doubtful ancestry of the Bill.
It will be for the incoming Government to consider the whole machinery of government, the powers which they have, and the powers which they may need, to carry out policies in the best interests of the country. We do not feel that we need to have any serious quarrel with the Government about the provisions of the Bill, although, as I indicated earlier, we would have preferred not to have a detailed Bill before us at the moment, but some acknowledgement of the transient nature of the phantoms opposite and the prospect of a Labour Government being elected in the near future.

4.34 p.m.

Mr. Charles Fletcher-Cooke: The hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) worked himself up into a frenzy of suspicion about the Bill, but when he considered its terms he had nothing but praise for it. The suspicions are clearly quite unfounded in view of the assurance given by my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary in his very clear introduction of the Bill, when he said that this had been looked at entirely from the point of view of administration, and without taking into account any doctrine one way or another.
That must surely be the case when we come to the question of State trading in jute. State trading in jute cloth and jute yarn is a matter to which many of us who are interested in the textile industry have seriously objected for many years, and, indeed, it is the precedent on which at one time—though I am not sure now—the Wilson plan for the textile industry, and particularly the cotton textile industry, was founded. Whenever we objected to the plan, we were told by the party opposite, "You have a very good precedent in the case of jute. You have done nothing to alter State trading in jute cloth and yarn. How can you object when we extend it to cotton cloth and yarn?"
I do not believe that it is a good thing to continue this indefinitely. I do

not understand why it has gone on for so long, and why it is to go on for another five years. I am not sure that it is really in keeping with our international obligations in the matter, because it undoubtedly breaches the principle of freedom of import and export to which we adhere rigidly when it comes to any question of protection for our cotton and man-made fibres.
It seems to me that to continue it for another five years for certain, and thereafter for an indefinite period, is something which is not commendable to this side of the House. But, at any rate, whether it is commendable or not, it shows quite clearly that the suspicions of the hon. Gentleman that this is somehow a slanted Bill—slanted in favour of the Government—are completely untrue. If anything, it is slanted the other way.
The hon. Gentleman found nothing seriously wrong with the Bill, and nor do I. The suggestion that we ought to have had a holding Bill, and then presumably this Bill next year—two bites at the cherry instead of one—surely is an abuse of Parliamentary time. My only small criticism about this method of legislating—and it is one which perhaps concerns my profession rather more than the House as a whole—is that it makes it very difficult to find out what the law is if one has an omnium gatherum Bill like this one, instead of Bills amending the subject matters concerned.
For example, on exchange control, in Clause 2, it would surely be more convenient, neater, and better for good order and government if that had been made an amendment to the Exchange Control Act, and so on, throughout the Bill. But that is a small complaint, and I have no doubt that with the excellent cross-indexing which we now have we shall get over that difficulty.
This is a courageous thing for the Government to have done, because a lot of the things which the Bill makes permanent are not altogether palatable to some of my hon. Friends. But with the assurance of my hon. Friend that the Government have looked at this not from the doctrinal point of view one way or the other, I suggest that we should pass it, and pass it quickly.

4.39 p.m.

Mr. G. M. Thomson: I hope that the House will understand and excuse me if I concentrate my remarks entirely on Clause 17, which has been referred to by the hon. and learned Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke). This is the life-or-death Clause for the City of Dundee—part of which I have the honour to represent—and that is why it is in the Bill, despite the doctrinal objections of many hon. Gentlemen opposite, to which the hon. and learned Member for Darwen has just given voice.
Clause 17 contains the protective device on which the employment of a large number of my constituents depends. I want to remind the House and the Minister exactly what the realities of the situation are in Dundee and in South Angus. In Dundee, 17,000 people are still directly employed in the jute industry. That is in one medium-sized industrial city, geographically isolated from alternative sources of employment. If employment in the jute industry is substantially reduced in that area, people who lose their jobs in it—failing diversification and the provision of alternative jobs—will have to move completely away from Dundee.
Despite splendid progress in the diversification of industry in the area, dependence on the jute industry is still very great. Nearly 40 per cent. of the manufacturing jobs in Dundee are still directly in the jute industry, and if we add in those jobs which are indirectly dependent on the prosperity of that industry the proportion is very much higher. It has been calculated that of the 17,000 jobs in the jute industry in Dundee about 12,000 hang on the continuation of the jute control contained in Clause 17.
Having said that, it may be thought that I ought to be very happy that the Government have inserted this Clause extending the provisions of Government jute control for five years, until 1969. But I would have been very much happier about the position if it had not been for the events which took place almost exactly a year ago. I count it a fortunate coincidence that the Treasury Minister who has had the job of moving the Second Reading of the Bill was Minister of State, Board of Trade, nearly 12 months ago, when he came to Dundee

and announced to the jute industry that the Government were proposing substantial reductions in the level of protection within the device of Government jute control.

Mr. Green: I would remind the hon. Member that the level of proposed protection in the first year, if I remember the facts correctly, was just about equivalent to the mark-up that had been given by the Jute Control.

Mr. Thomson: The changes proposed originally by the Minister last July were estimated to bring about, in the course of a year or two, a reduction of about 5,000 jobs out of a labour force of 17,000 in Dundee, and perhaps a rather heavier reduction in the constituency of South Angus.
I do not think that the Minister was surprised by the intensity of the opposition that was aroused by these proposals. As a result of that opposition, from many different quarters, the Government were forced to retreat from their original proposals. They set up a working party to look into alternative methods of safeguarding employment in the United Kingdom jute industry, and as far as I know that working party is still carrying on its considerations. At the time when it was set up the then Minister of State, Board of Trade—the present Financial Secretary to the Treasury—said that if the inquiry did not produce satisfactory alternative arrangements a uniform percentage markup would be introduced in a year's time for the equated and excluded goods.
I do not want to bore the House with the technicalities of this proposition. Suffice it to say that in clue course it would have meant a substantial reduction of employment in the jute industry. This is the proposal which, on the Government's public statement last August, is presumably to be implemented this August. My immediate purpose in speaking on the Bill is to seek from the Government an unequivocal assurance that, in the light of the political developments of the last 12 months, they are retreating from this statement. I want an assurance from the Minister that whatever the working party finally reports no decision will be taken by the Government to reduce the level of protection for the jute industry until the people of Dundee and the whole country


have had an opportunity to decide what kind of Government they want at the forthcoming General Election.
It is a very great consolation to many people in the Dundee area who are not remotely Labour supporters that there will be a General Election very shortly, and that, whatever they may think about it from other points of view, it is likely that a Labour Government will be elected in the autumn. It is because of this prospect that we are entitled to a clear statement from the Government that since the General Election has been postponed to the legal limit of the life of this Parliament they will not make any new changes in respect of the protection given to the jute industry until the election has taken place.
That is the main thing that I want to urge on the Government. I conclude by reminding the House that in Dundee at least there can be no doubt about the importance of the election decision to be taken in the autumn. It is clear beyond partisan political argument that the level of employment in the jute industry is at risk if a Conservative Government is—in the unlikely event—elected in the autumn.

Sir D. Glover: It will be more at risk if your party gets in.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Robert Grimston): Not my party.

Mr. Thomson: I hope to prove it to the satisfaction of the hon. Member. There can be no doubt that it is the desire of the party opposite to make a substantial reduction in the level of protection for the jute industry. We had a very frank expression of the general view on the Conservative benches in the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Darwen. He repeated frankly what the Minister said to the jute industry in July last year, but later solf-pedalled because of the amount of opposition that it aroused, and also because, regrettably, we had a by-election pending in the City of Dundee at the time.
In the debate on 24th July, 1963—in the early hours of the morning, as the hon. Gentleman may recall—the Minister made a quite fair and frank statement of the Conservative attitude on this matter, when he said:

… it is in the interests of the jute industry of Dundee that we get a change in the method of protection as well as in the level of it as soon as possible."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 24th July, 1963; Vol. 681, c. 1698.]
It is for that reason that I tell him that the jute industry is at risk if his party remains in power.
My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, who has an intimate knowledge of these matters from his period of office as President of the Board of Trade in the Labour Administration, has made it clear time and time again, as the hon. and learned Member for Darwen confirmed, that a Labour Government would use the economic power of the State to prevent full employment in the jute industry being put in peril. Therefore, there can be no doubt that it is in the overwhelming interest of the overwhelming majority of people in the Dundee area that there should be a change of Government.
My immediate point, however, is to make it clear that because of the postponement of the General Election the Government should give the House a clear undertaking that their statement of last August—that in 12 months they would take certain action—will no longer be carried out.

4.50 p.m.

Sir James Duncan: There was much that the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. G. Thomson) said with which I entirely agree and which I support, particularly that part of his speech when he was not political and came down to the real bread and butter of Dundee and the surrounding district. I represent South Angus, which has quite a lot of jute, and the constituencies of Fife and Perthshire are also interested.
I am glad, in a way, that the working party has not reported. I hope that even if it does report—I support the hon. Gentleman here—no decision of the Government will be made before the General Election, because, whatever the decision might be, it would be likely to provoke a great deal of argument in the constituencies. I do not believe that it is right that at the tail end of a Parliament any decision should be made pending a General Election. I strongly support the hon. Gentleman's argument


that if any further action is required a statement should be made by Her Majesty's Government now.
The hon. Gentleman became a little more political later, and tried to make out that the jute trade would be safer under a Labour Government than it would be under a Tory Government. I am not sure. The Labour Party believes in State trading and the hon. Gentleman has quoted his right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson) as saying that he would use the economic power of the State to keep the jute trade alive. 'What does that mean? Will he nationalise it? Will he subsidise it? What will he do? "The economic power of the State" is a very vague expression. I very much doubt if the electors of Dundee will be taken in by an intellectual expression like that. What the voters of Dundee and district want to know is how the jute industry is to be preserved.
My hon. Friend has said—and the hon. Member for Dundee, East quoted him—that there may have to be a change in the method of protection, and that that is what the working party is trying to evolve at the moment. I hope that it will be able to evolve a change in the method of protection. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke) does not like it. The Board of Trade does not like it. One of the troubles that we have always been up against is that the Board of Trade does not like it. I put to the hon. Gentleman this point that on the basis of theoretical politics the exception can prove the rule. The jute industry is concentrated in Dundee. In a very small and isolated area the life of 17,000 men and the life of the city depends on the industry.
It is the exception that proves the rule that private enterprise, broadly speaking, is better than State trading. I am not quite sure where the Labour Party stands on State trading. Are we in for a period of a mixed economy, or what? We know that some industries are to be renationalised. We have read such vague statements in Signposts for the Sixties, but we do not know' what will happen to a lot of other industries, and we certainly do not understand what is meant by "the economic power of the State". Does that mean, for instance,

that the jute industry should cease to be economic, and rely on a Labour Government and the economic power of the State to keep it going, efficient or inefficient?
Personally, I think that the jute industry is now highly efficient £12 million or £13 million has been put into it. It is fiercely competitive with the Indian cloth that is coming in, with paper, and now with plastic bags, and it seems to me that, provided that we do not interfere with it, we shall be able to support it quite logically on the ground that it is facing very severe competition and is bound to be efficient if it is to survive.
I hope that my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary will assure it that, if there is to be a change in the method of protection, the level of certain grades, at any rate, will not be reduced until 1969 and perhaps, by a further Order under Clause 17 of the Bill, after 1969. I believe that this is an industry which, by the very nature of its case and what it produces, is bound to be efficient to survive. If the Board of Trade takes away its protection by one means or another, I believe that it will fail to survive the competition not with India only, but with paper and plastics. The industry deserves the utmost help which Her Majesty's Government, or any Government, can give it in the future.

4.56 p.m.

Mr. Peter Doig: I was delighted to hear the hon. Member for South Angus (Sir J. Duncan) agreeing with my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, East (Mr. G. Thomson) that it is necessary that the Government should not take any decisive step in relation to the future of jute protection until after the next election. I believe that it is absolutely necessary that we have this breathing space to find out just what the public of this area and the country as a whole think in relation to the protection of the jute industry.
If we go back to the Board of Trade's original proposals it gave three reasons why there should be a change. First, any of the substitutes would make it uneconomic for jute to compete evenly on the market. Let us take one or two of the points. We have paper bags, which are the chief contendent against it. The people who use paper bags will continue to do so whether there is protection for


the jute industry or not, because they are approximately only half the price of jute bags. Therefore, the protection would have no effect whatever. Those people who were using paper bags now would continue to use them and there would be no incentive for anyone else to change whether there was jute protection or not.
We come to the argument that there would be another drop in the use of jute because of the use of bulk transport vehicles. Again, this would have no effect whatever, because this method is much cheaper than any other form of container for firms which can use it on a large scale. So there can be no question of substitutes having any effect on the need for protection of jute.
The second point made was pressure from India. India's total exports to Britain amount to only 5 per cent. of India's total exports, which is a negligible amount and would not influence the situation in any way. We have been told in the past by my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, East that it would adversely affect Pakistan if we took this step, so by placating one member of the Commonwealth we would be antagonising another.
The third reason which it gave was the decision of the Restrictive Practices Court. The jute industry case at the Court was, first, that serious and persistent unemployment would result if effective protection was not continued, and, secondly, that internal price agreements were necessary for this industry. The Court agreed with the first of these submissions and disagreed with the second. Therefore, there is absolutely no need for the Government to scrap the existing protection to the jute industry under any of these three heads.

Sir J. Duncan: The hon. Gentleman w ill make clear that, the jute industry having accepted the decision of the Restrictive Practices Court, there is no price agreement now.

Mr. Doig: I know that, but the Board of Trade does not seem to have accepted it yet. It has given no final decision. None of these three points is valid any more, so why do not we say that we will keep protection as it is and then

everyone will be happy? The reasons for making a change have ceased to exist.
I wish to quote one paragraph from the judgment of the Restrictive Practices Court:
The evidence which was laid before us, and the statistical comparison of operating costs between the United Kingdom and similar costs in India and Pakistan, left us in no doubt that the concessions envisaged by the Working Party of 1948 in their admirable comprehensive and valuable Report, as justifying protection of the home industry, continue to apply, and, so far as can reasonably be foreseen, will continue to do so.
Even the Restrictive Practices Court recognised the need to continue this protection for jute goods produced in this country for as far ahead as could be foreseen to make up for the difference in cost created by the use of cheap labour which is still obtainable in India.
The hon. Member for South Angus asked whether a Labour Government would subsidise the jute industry. I wish to draw his attention to the fact that this Government do not subsidise jute. In fact, it is a case of subsidy in reverse. The Government rake in as protection money no less than £750,000 every year. This is equivalent to every jute worker in Dundee paying nearly £1 a week as protection money to the Government for his job. So the Government do better out of this than even Al Capone did in his heyday in Chicago. I do not think that there is any question of a subsidy, in fact it is the opposite. This is a highly profitable investment for the Government. There is no question of a subsidy for Dundee, Forfar or the jute industry; the subsidy goes to the Government.
Hon. Members on both sides of the House have agreed that the area in question is isolated. Why is it isolated? Simply because the Government will not build a road to connect up the whole of the East Coast of Scotland. Even the railways, 100 years ago, had the sense to connect up the whole of the East Coast of Scotland with the East Coast of England. Whether we like it or not, three out of the four Scottish cities are situated on the East Coast. The two most difficult physical hazards have been or are being overcome by the building of road bridges over the Tay and the Forth.
This has been done under a Tory Government after a great deal of pressure. It is the fact that despite this pressure the Government, through the Secretary of State for Scotland, have refused even to consider building a road across Fife to connect up the two bridges. Their plans for a dual carriageway road go as far as Newcastle and then stop. We have the farcical situation that traffic up the East Coast of Scotland gets to Scotch Corner and then goes to the West Coast to compete with the West Coast traffic on the already overcrowded roads there, until it gets into Scotland then it goes back to the East Coast again.
That farcical situation exists simply because the Government will not agree to building two fairly short stretches of good modern road. That is why the jute industry area is isolated. We can blame no one but the Government for that.
I think that the jute industry is efficient. It has fought for survival for 100 years. Regularly, people have forecast that the industry was dying, but it still survives every new invention, obstacle and competitor. It does so because of its very efficient research department which was paid for entirely by the industry. A vast amount of money, over £13 million, was spent on modernising equipment and plant on the strength of promises made by the present Minister of Defence and the Tory Government. After the money had been spent those promises were broken. No wonder the people of Dundee will not trust Tory promises.
Let us look at the statements made by the respective party leaders during the recent by-election and we shall then see in which party people in the industry are likely to place their faith. In a statement to the Tory candidate in the Dundee, West by-election the Prime Minister said:
The people of Dundee have shown how readily they can develop the skills needed for industries which have already settled there. We shall strive to attract more industries to Dundee. But Scotland needs its older industries as well as new ones and we intend to ensure that the long association of jute with Dundee is maintained by an efficient and self-supporting industry.
I am sorry; I should have said, "efficient and viable industry". I said "self-

supporting" because I discovered that this is what "viable" means. Until then I did not know what it meant. I sometimes wonder whether the Prime Minister knew, when I compare some of the statements which he made with what happened later, and with things said by Ministers in the Government.
The next statement which the right hon. Gentleman made related to the Tay road bridge; that work had started on it and would be of great importance to Dundee. It would provide a direct road to the South and be a boon to industry setting up in the area. But the direct road to the South has a big gap in it where there is not a good road. When we asked Ministers of the Government what they were proposing to do about the gap, in view of what the Prime Minister had said, we found that they had no plans to do anything. So this direct road to the South seems to me something about which the Prime Minister did not know. He had forgotten that there is a county called Fife and that a good road is required from Edinburgh to Newcastle.
The right hon. Gentleman referred to the development of skills needed in respect of industries already settled in Dundee. It was fortunate for the people of Dundee that there was a Labour Government after the war. That was when the new industries came to Dundee and it was the result of legislation passed by the Government of that time. Most of the industry which has come to Dundee since then and in the lifetime of this Parliament consists of extension of industries which came during the period of office of the Labour Government. It is not possible to extend something which was not there already, and if the Labour Government had not successfully attracted industry to the area there could have been no extension.
It would be interesting to discover—I shall put down a Parliamentary Question in order to do so—how many new industries as distinct from extensions of existing industries have come to Dundee during the 12 years that this Government have been in office. The figure would be found to be surprisingly small. No wonder the Prime Minister said that the people of Dundee have to continue with the existing and older industries. It is certainly necessary that this should be so, if Dundee is to be a prosperous area.


Let us contrast this rather vague statement by the Prime Minister with what Harold Wilson said when he sent me a message during the by-election.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order. The hon. Member must not refer to another hon. Member by name.

Mr. Doig: I am sorry, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. As I was saying, I would contrast with the Prime Minister's statement the letter which my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition sent to me at that time. In it, he said:
Not only shall we use Government power to prevent low-cost imports from ruining the jute industry on which the welfare of Dundee still largely depends. Labour's long-term plan for Scotland will also mean that if private firms fail to provide enough new jobs in places like Dundee … then we shall not hesitate to establish new publicly-pioneered enterprises.
So we conceive that there is a vast difference between what the Leaders of the respective parties have to say in relation to this area.
We had an example during Question Time today, when the Minister of Aviation was talking about providing a vast airport for London, an area already tremendously overcrowded. Instead of taking some of the jobs away from London, the Government are making plans for introducing new developments there which will attract more industries to it. Yet when the Government say that they want to attract more industries to Dundee they do not do so. They give us no connecting roads and no airports. The City of Dundee has had to try to provide an airstrip for businessmen who want to use aircraft for their journeys. This is far more expensive. Up to now the Government have done absolutely nothing to help Dundee. There is no doubt, therefore, that the interests of the people of Dundee will be far better looked after under a Labour Government than under a Tory Government.

5.13 p.m.

Sir Douglas Glover: In 12 years in the House I have never dared to enter a debate which was mostly devoted to Scotland, but this is a debate that really does not apply to Scotland except under one Clause in the Bill. I therefore feel that I shall not be transgressing and become an automatic

member of the Scottish Grand Committee by intervening, particularly as I have some very pleasant recollections of being stationed with the 52nd Division in Dundee during the war, where I ran a concert and raised £250 for the Dundee P.O.W. organisation.
I rise, strangely enough, to oppose what my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke) has said on the matter of jute. I think that the exception proves the rule and that there is a strong case for the jute industry. I am sure that it would be wrong if the impression went out as a result of this debate that the Opposition held this view very strongly and that we did not. On the other hand, I think that there is a great deal in what the Government suggested when my hon. Friend was Minister of State, Board of Trade, because one difficulty about protection from overseas competition is that if protective duties are too high and, therefore, one increases the price of the commodity on the internal market above the price of competing commodities, one does not increase the employment and the turnover in the industry but reduces them.
It is also essential in any industry which enjoys protection from overseas competition that there must be no suspicion of co-ordination and marketing practice. The only way in which protection from overseas competition can be justified is by ensuring that there is competition in that commodity on the internal market. I think that that situation is now beginning to apply in the jute industry for the fact that my hon. Friend when he was at the Board of Trade had to look into this shows that the situation was not as desperate as the picture of competition which the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. G. M. Thomson) painted this afternoon. In fact, the hon. Gentleman gave the game away when he quoted what the Restrictive Practices Court said. One cannot have it both ways. The fact that it is all right now that the restrictive practice has been done away with shows clearly that before that happened the competition was not so keen.
I think that if the hon. Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Doig) goes into the Library and looks at the map he will see that the shortest distance from Scotch Corner to Dundee is through Carlisle and not Berwick-on-Tweed.

Mr. Doig: That is exactly what I said, and that is the way the traffic goes at the present time.

Sir D. Glover: No, the hon. Gentleman said that there was no road through Newcastle. The shortest route from Scotch Corner is, in fact, to switch over to the West Coast and then back to the East Coast. It is a shorter route.
The other point I want to raise on the Bill is about Clause 5. Quite honestly, I am surprised that the Minister has thought it right to make this Clause a permanent part of our legislation. I agree that under certain conditions these emergency powers for medical supplies are probably justified, but as the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton), who is no longer in his place, said, as Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, that he was not aware that these regulations were available for use if required, it is quite obvious that they have been used so infrequently in years gone by that we have been able to run the Health Service and the medical drugs scheme for that, Service without calling on the powers available under Clause 5. As we have been able to do that up to now, I should like a further explanation from my hon. Friend as to why, if these powers have not been used hitherto, it is still felt necessary to change them into permanent legislation. That is all I have to say.
I think that most of the matters raised in the Emergency Laws (Re-enactments and Repeals) Bill are good and justified. The only thing that surprises me is that the hon. Member for Sowerby, after being a leading spokesman on financial affairs for the party opposite for 13 years, does not seem to have reached any conclusion as to what should happen over these matters. It seems to be thought that we should bring in some hotch-potch and holding operation so that if disaster struck the country and the party opposite came to power it could take several years thinking what to do. I think that we should take action in the matter, but I should like to have more information about the medical supplies.

5.17 p.m.

Mr. G. R. Mitchison: I think that the form and substance of this Measure is interesting from one general point of view. What the Government claim to have done is to have gone

through the Defence Regulations and preserved in the form of Clauses in this Bill those which are still required. When I look at Clauses 1 to 6 I find that every single one of them is, as one would expect, a Clause providing for delegated legislation, and when we are told that there is something unnecessary and oppressive in this, I think I am entitled to look at the Government's view in this matter. They seem to think that some sweeping controls are necessary. I am not saying that I disagree with them, but if we look at the language of Clause 2, which deals with the Treasury's financial controls over securities, gold and so on, we find that not only are securities very widely defined but that the Clause gives exceedingly sweeping powers under very general terms.
I have no objection to this. I think that control of that sort is necessary and I am glad that the Government recognise it. However, I sometimes wish that they would stop talking nonsense about the perils of having controls and the perils of making Orders. Masses of Orders come to this House week by week from various Government Departments, and some of them, by the nature of the case, produce more than others. Under modern conditions Order-making powers of that character are necessary. What we in Parliament have to do is to see that we keep some control over them in the form of the present arrangements about affirmative or negative procedure and to look at the procedure itself from time to time to see if it is sufficient to give effective democratic control over these masses of Orders.
A great many of them are local matters and are done under a general authority given by some Statute or other by Parliament. Probably it would be very rare to find an occasion on which Orders of that character have to be examined. Even there, however, one notices that there is a need for a check. The Statutory Instruments Committee from time to time rightly and properly calls our attention to some excess of power or some failure to carry out proper procedure. I accept and note that the Government themselves, facing the problem, have considered it necessary to continue in the form of Clauses in a Bill very sweeping powers. Some may be most sweeping, but all are by no means


limited. They contain in several cases general words which no doubt refer to existing powers which have not necessarily been used.
In answer to the hon. Member for Ormskirk (Sir D. Glover) and others, it does not seem a definite argument that when a power has not been in use for some time it is, therefore, unnecessary. The unused powers may be necessary as deterrents. My hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) quite clearly pointed that out. I do not think that the hon. Member for Ormskirk can have heard that part of his speech. One can think of many instances where that is obvious other than those which arise directly under this Bill. I always remember the story of a solicitor who had to deal with a rather tiresome person against whom the solicitor's client had some rights, and who was thought to be protected by the Statute of Limitations. At the critical moment the solicitor—a rather astute gentleman—pulled out a drawer in his desk and produced the writ which he had taken care to issue during the statutory period, thereby depriving his peccant opponent of the thought that his case was completely watertight.
I am not going into details about jute. I do not know enough about them. True enough, I had a relative by marriage who once inspected the Dundee sewers and found them extremely attractive because they had a most engaging mixed smell of jute and oranges. That does not entitle me to pretend to a great knowledge of the industry as it now is. A power is being used avowedly by the Government to protect the industry itself. It may be efficient in some senses and in some inefficient. I am not concerned with that, but the power exists to deal with jute as a method of practically fixing the price, but a power is being dropped because at the moment it is unnecessary. That is the power to deal with raw jute.
I do not want to go into this at great length now—it is perhaps much more of a Committee point—but at a moment when unemployment is serious in Dundee the existing remedy may not be sufficient. At a moment when a working party is considering the whole question, I should have thought it far safer to retain the power in relation to raw jute as well as

in relation to manufactured jute. There is no harm in keeping the power for the time being, even if it is not used. It is very much better in a matter of this sort where men's jobs and livelihood are at stake to keep existing powers, even if we do not need to use some of them, than to drop them. This is a human problem. I regret that the Government have chosen this moment to drop that particular power.

Sir J. Duncan: No one in Dundee wants these powers.

Mr. Mitchison: I am not certain if I understood the hon. Member for South Angus (Sir J. Duncan) rightly, but I think he and everyone in this House, including members of the Government, are for once agreed that the powers to deal with manufactured jute—and in effect to deal with the price of manufactured jute—are needed. The question is whether the power in relation to raw jute should be retained. That, I understand, was introduced during the war and was partly dropped, I am told, as a result of a compromise between those who wanted to drop it entirely and those who wanted to keep it. It is a pity that that power should be dropped now.

Sir J. Duncan: I think the reason for the power being put on during the war was to save shipping. To bring in the needed amount, shipping had to be organised, but that no longer applies. The industry does not want this power to continue.

Mr. Mitchison: We are dealing with men's work and livelihood. There is an existing power and a working party is considering the whole question. I should have thought that in the circumstances it was a mistake to drop that power at the moment.
That leads me to a broad consideration of the whole business of the Bill. I entirely agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby that it would have been better to have left the selection of what was to be kept and what was to be dropped to the Government, of whatever colour, that there will be after the General Election. That would have needed a short general continuation Bill for the time being, but there ought to be no difficulty about that. The Government are making a selection now, but


they do not know—as none of us knows—whether the next Government will be formed from hon. Members opposite or from hon. Members on this side of the House. In those circumstances, it would have been far better to have left the selection to the new Government.
I cannot see a new Government from this side of the House feeling itself in any way tied by the particular selection that the present Government have made. It may be more inconvenient to have to deal with the matter again, but it certainly will have to be looked at—and looked at, I think, without any acceptance of the present Government's selection one way or the other. I say that because I can see no reason to oppose the Second Reading of this Bill. There may be objections in Committee, but that is another matter. I do not want it to be thought, however, that because we do not oppose the Second Reading we necessarily agree with what the Government have done either by bringing forward this Measure at this moment or by their selection. Perhaps they did not want to be overtaken by the Obscene Publications Bill, as they appear to have been overtaken by a similar Measure last time. We are equally critical because we think that some of the things they propose to drop by this Bill may not be safe to drop at the moment.
There it is. We on this side of the House feel critical in many respects but not on points which we feel involved opposition on Second Reading. May I add one concluding remark? My hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby suggested that there ought to be some definition of the word "emergency". Curiously enough, the only place in which the word "emergency" occurs in the Bill, as far as I can see, is in the Title, and perhaps that does not matter quite so much. In many cases these Regulations were brought in to deal with an emergency, and the use of the word caused a good deal of difficulty. The Attorney-General will no doubt call my attention to the existence of the word elsewhere in the Bill if it is there, but otherwise he would not wish to do what was done once before in a Government Bill—define with precision a word which did not occur in it.

5.31 p.m.

The Attorney-General (Sir John Hobson): I have no intention of endeavouring to define a word which does not occur in the Bill—to deal with the last point first. All these emergency powers are linked with the Emergency Powers Act, 1920, which gives Her Majesty power by Proclamation to declare an emergency. When we are talking of emergency powers or of emergencies in relation to those powers, it is in connection with the Emergency Powers Act, 1920, and the declaration by Proclamation of an emergency that they must be read.
Both the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) and the hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Michison) have drawn attention to the historical fact that we always seem to discuss this topic in conjunction with the Obscene Publications Bill. The last occasion was the Third Reading of the Emergency Laws (Repeal) Bill on 16th December, 1958, when Mr. Speaker himself, in a different capacity, addressed himself to both topics. History has repeated itself today in a matter of light and shade. One could not say that either the subject or the speeches of today's debate were all airs and graces, but it is nevertheless almost impossible to inject into the subject matter which we are debating any relevant obscenity except by way of an expletive.
An interesting historical connection struck the hon. Member for Sowerby, who showed great anxiety in that what had occurred in 1959 might have been only the prelude to a General Election and a result which he did not like in 1959. While we have to await the events of a General Election, perhaps in that respect, too, history may repeat itself.
It may well be that we ought to glance back at the history of these matters. This is no more than a minor clearing up operation in a long legislative history which began at the outbreak of the war in September, 1939. The country was to a great extent controlled, organised and run by Defence Regulations throughout the war. The Labour Government after the war got rid of a very large number of those Defence Regulations which ceased to be necessary, but nevertheless, in October, 1951 there were 215 Regulations still in existence, including the


powers of controlling production, of controlling distribution, of controlling consumption and of controlling the prices of goods of any kind whatever, if the Government thought it necessary. They operated at that time on most foods, including sweets, and on soap and bread. They operated on coal, on petrol, on utility goods and on many other products. Apart from the control of goods there was extensive control of services. Building licences were still in existence. One could regulate the terms and conditions of workers in essential industries, and there was power to prohibit strikes and lock-outs. There was control of the use of agricultural land and control of the use and movement of British ships.
The hon. and learned Member for Kettering said that the Bill showed only that the Conservative Government, when they thought necessary, supported controls and delegated legislation. But there is a marked difference in substance and in spirit between a system of general control of industry, of the economic life of the country and of the way in which individuals can behave by a system of regulation, on the one hand, and what is at present being done—the taking by the Government of powers in limited and specified areas for particular topics, which are powers strictly for only such cases as are really necessary in conditions of peace.
The greater part of the task of clearing up the rule of this country by regulation was performed in 1959. Between 1951 and 1959 most of the Defence Regulations had been abandoned, and in 1959 all the remaining Defence Regulations were terminated, except for five, which were then made statutory for a period of five years only and were continued in force for that period only in a statutory form and not as Defence Regulations. They were continued in force by virtue of the 1959 Act in the form in which they were scheduled to that Act and without any power either to amend or to extend those Regulations—though with the power to revoke a Regulation or any part of it.
All those five previous Defence Regulations, which in 1959 became statutory, were, as has been pointed out, due to expire on 31st December of this year unless legislation were undertaken. That is why the Bill has been brought in. The

hon. Member for Sowerby seemed to make his particular point of criticism that the Government were dealing with this problem at the present stage instead of leaving it until after the General Election. It is obvious that the new Government, whichever party, will have many problems to consider as soon as it is returned. The Parliamentary time between the re-assembly of Parliament and 31st December is very short. I should have thought that it was wholly unnecessary to have two bites at this cherry when it appears, at any rate from the speeches which have been made, to be an almost non-contentious matter. Maybe there are details to be taken up in Committee. Maybe the Bill can be improved in certain directions. But that this step needed to be taken is without doubt, and why we should postpone it until after the General Election when at this stage it does not appear to be a very contentious matter, and when many more important matters will have to be considered after the election, whoever wins it, is difficult to see.
The hon. Member for Sowerby seemed to be complaining that what the Government were doing was to remove the opportunity of a Labour Government, if elected, to control the country to a great extent by what he called the flick of a switch. He seemed to be complaining that they would not be allowed to continue to introduce regulations, and he suggested that it was wrong that these should be made statutory powers which could be altered only by legislation.

Mr. Houghton: The right hon. and learned Member is under a misapprehension. I was quoting from the debate on the Bill of 1958. The then Lord Privy Seal, in a speech outside the House, had revealed the Government's true intention in introducing that Bill. It was an historic reference and had no connection with the Bill before the House.

The Attorney-General: I am sorry if I misunderstood the hon. Gentleman. I understood him to say that he thought that a Labour Government, if elected, should have the opportunity to consider how they should deal with the matter. Presumably if the hon. Gentleman disagrees with the Bill he can vote against it. By that means he is able to show his objection to the Measure. As I understand it, this is no more than a


winding-up Bill and I believe that it is right, sensible and proper that this should be done rather than that it should be postponed until after the General Election.
The hon. Member for Sowerby also complained that the Government had not briefed him or the Opposition generally about the Bill. The Government present a Bill for hon. Members to read. This Bill was presented in plenty of time for it to be studied and, while I appreciate the difficulties and complications of a Measure of this sort, I must make it clear that my hon. Friend and his Department were not asked for any assistance. My hon. Friend would have been willing to give it. Indeed, there was a request yesterday for some information. Within an hour of the request being received the information had been supplied by my hon. Friend's Department and two copies of the Press notice which had been sent out were made available in the House. If the hon. Member for Sowerby did not have such good service from the Library—and I would not wish to investigate that matter—my hon. Friend would, had he been requested, have seen that such information as the hon. Member for Sowerby might have wanted was given.

Mr. Mitchison: I share my hon. Friend's feelings. I did not express them when I spoke because I did not think it necessary to repeat them. The right hon. and learned Gentleman will recall that before we debated the 1959 Measure a White Paper was issued. It is common practice for Government Departments, particularly in connection with a highly technical Bill such as this, to issue some sort of statement. What my hon. Friend complained of and what the right hon. and learned Gentleman has not mentioned is that something of the sort was issued, apparently without demand—although I am not certain on that score—to the Lobby, but nothing whatever was provided for my hon. Friends and hon. Members generally. Surely the Government do not want to be asked every time to do what they should obviously do.

The Attorney-General: The Government produced for the House the Bill; and the bon. Member for Sowerby and

the hon. and learned Member for Kettering were able to see and read it.

Mr. Houghton: We will do better than that.

The Attorney-General: The hon. Member for Sowerby's criticism of the Bill—and he came to the Bill after a long preliminary disposition of other topics—seemed mainly to concern its ancestry. It was on that point only that he seemed to criticise it. He did not like its ancestry, although he did not criticise the Measure itself. Nor did he criticise any of its Clauses, most of which he welcomed and many of which he thought should be strengthened.
We have not during the course of the debate had any discussion of some of what I hope the House will regard as the legal improvements in the machinery of the Bill. Clause 8(1), for example, has made what I hope hon. Members will regard as a slight improvement in respect of notices, orders or directions issued for the purposes of the Measure.
There are a number of Clauses where the rights of the citizen can be affected by the issue of a notice regarding an order or direction. Under the previous provisions no more was required than that it should be by ordinary post, but under Clause 8(1) it is now provided that such a notice, order or direction is deemed to have been served on the person only if it has been delivered personally or sent by registered post or recorded delivery service. If, however, it should happen that it can be proved that effective service has been made by ordinary post, and that the notice has been received, that will still be a sufficient service. The question of the service of a notice is a matter of some importance and I hope that the House will consider this to have been some improvement.
It is also worth noting that under Schedule 1 there is, first, no legal power to require the keeping of records and, again, a Government Department can no longer authorise any person to inspect or search any premises for the purposes of the Measure. It will be only on a warrant issued by a justice of the peace that a search can now be authorised. The powers contained in Schedule 1 are similar to those which were given to the Board of Trade by the Protection of Depositors Act, 1963, and are drawn


only in relation to the obtaining of information for the purposes of the Bill.
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke) objected to the omnium gatherum process used in the Bill. This is a problem. It was considered and it was a difficult choice. The alternative was to have a mass of small Bills, some of them dealing with very small points and some merely amending other legislation to a small degree. This might have caused a greater inconvenience to the practitioner and, certainly from the point of view of Parliament, would have taken a great deal more time, for we would have had to attach to each Bill some of the ancillary and procedural matters dealt with generally in this Bill. It is a question of choice and I hope that the House will consider that, on the whole, it was more convenient to deal with these matters in this way rather than to present a series of small Bills, each with ancillary provisions which would have been very similar to each other.
The principal topic of discussion has been jute and Dundee. The jute industry is relevant to the powers of the Bill, but the geographical conditions and intercommunications of Dundee are less relevant, although of great importance. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. G. M. Thomson) for the tribute he paid to the efforts the Government have been making to diversify industry in Dundee and I am sure that all hon. Members agree that this is an essential matter for the future of the people who live and work in Dundee.
The Government realise the importance of diversification for Dundee, along with the great importance of the jute industry to that city, as well as to its future. As has been said, a working party is investigating the problem. I am not in a position to give any assurances of the kind sought, concerning what the Government will do, but, speaking generally, it must be obvious that what is to happen to the jute industry and what decisions the Government will take about it will depend on the results of that working party, although it would be wrong, before its report has been received, to start to give any indications

about what conclusions the Government might come to about the future of the jute industry.
Meantime, the Bill provides the powers to continue the present system of the protection of the Trade. They are available for the following five years and can be extended beyond that, if necessary. From that point of view the relevance of the Bill is that the present system of protection for the jute industry can be continued.
There are two alternative methods of protecting the industry. The first method is of State trading, which permits the jute controller to add a mark-up on imported jute goods to keep home-made goods on the market and, secondly, to provide protection by way of tariffs. We retain the State-trading method and, as I have said, we are seeing, by means of the working party, what is the best way of proceeding in future.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for South Angus (Sir J. Duncan) for his contribution and his questions about what is meant by vague phrases like "economic power of the State" and "publicly-owned industry" when those generalities are applied to the reality of an industry which is carrying on business and employing 1,700 people in specialised, localised conditions, in competition with many other products of a different nature.

Mr. Mitchison: Before the right hon. and learned Gentleman gets too far involved in Tory astrology, I would point out that it has always been said that these powers are renewable after the end of 1969. It is no doubt my own stupidity, but I cannot find that provision. Clause 17 says that the existing powers are to continue in force until the end of 1969. It then, perhaps rather oddly, provides that subsection (2) shall effect in substitution of these powers. That subsection starts:
Until the end of 1969 …
Where is the provision for renewal after that?

The Attorney-General: I am grateful to the hon. and learned Gentleman—he is quite right. The powers under Clause 17 are limited to five years. I am sorry if I got it wrong; many of the other Clauses contain extension powers, and I thought that this one did, too.

Mr. G. M. Thomson: I might now give notice that I will raise the question of the statement about August during the Committee stage. Would not the Attorney-General agree that a Bill like this, which extends the power of jute control, involves the question of the Government's attitude towards protection? Will the Government therefore ensure that the uncertainty in Dundee is ended, at least until the General Election?

The Attorney-General: Certainly. If I may say so, I think that the Committee stage would be a very convenient time at which to raise the matter. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving notice that he will do so—I had already suspected that he would. It may be possible by then for other Ministers concerned in the matter to be more precise than I feel I can be at the moment. To some extent, of course, it depends on whether the Report of the Working Party has been received and considered, because that is the next stage before final conclusions can be come to.
The only other point was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Ormskirk (Sir D. Glover), who asked about the control of prices of medical supplies in Clause 5. It is true that this power has never been used, but the hon. and learned Member for Kettering was correct when he said that there are occasions when this power may be required; in particular, as my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary said, in negotiations on the Voluntary Price Regulation Scheme. The fact that these powers are available puts the Government in a position in which they can negotiate. Without these powers the Government would have no influence at all, they would have no bargaining power in such negotiations, and would not be able to bring any pressure on anyone because they are not, in fact, a purchaser.
The level of actual use of these goods is controlled by the medical profession

in regard to prices, and demand is thereby also controlled. It is only by the Government's power to use, if necessary, compulsory price-fixing controls that they can have any influence at all on negotiations that have, up to now, always remained voluntary, and which it is hoped will remain so, because the trade and the Government will together be able to come to sensible conclusions on these matters.
I hope that my remarks deal with most of the points that have been raised. No one has either generally or in particular, I think, opposed the Bill or any one of its Clauses. Some points may have to be discussed again in Committee but as, at this stage, there seems, as I say, to be no general or particular opposition to the Bill, I hope that the House will now give it a Second Reading.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills).

Orders of the Day — EMERGENCY LAWS (RE-ENACTMENT AND REPEALS) [MONEY]

[Queen's Recommendation signified]

Considered in Committee under Standing Order No. 88 (Money Committees).

[Sir ROBERT GRIMSTON in the Chair]

Resolved,

That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to repeal the remaining Defence Regulations that is to say, the Defence Regulations set out n the Emergency Laws (Repeal) Act 1959), and to re-enact certain of those Defence Regulations with modifications, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of any expenses incurred by any government department which are attributable to the provisions of the Act.—[Mr. Green.]

Resolution to be reported.

Report to be received Tomorrow.

Orders of the Day — OBSCENE PUBLICATIONS BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

5.56 p.m.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. C. M. Woodhouse): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
This Bill is designed to remedy certain defects that experience has shown in the working of the law on obscene publications, as contained in the Obscene Publications Act, 1959. It is not intended to make any change in the basic principle of that Act, which derive substantially from the recommendations of a Select Committee appointed by the House in 1957. Those recommendations were intended to bring greater certainty into the law by the adoption of a statutory test of obscenity dependent on the corrupting effect of the book or other article on the persons likely, in all the relevant circumstances, to read, see or hear it.
They were also designed to serve two other main purposes. One was to afford a measure of protection for works of literary, artistic or other merit by introducing a special defence of publication for the public good. The other was to strengthen the powers available to the authorities for suppressing the traffic in pornography These recommendations formed the basis of the Act of 1959, which was introduced as a Private Member's Measure by the hon. Member for Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins), whom I am happy to see in his place. The purposes I have mentioned were, indeed, made explicit in the Long Title of the 1959 Measure.
The Government gave assistance during the several stages of the Bill's passage through Parliament, and were instrumental in having it amended in certain particulars. In its final form, therefore, it was the product of the combined efforts of private Members and the Government. Deriving, as it did, from a series of compromises, and in a number of cases from the introduction of Amendments drafted with different, and even conflicting, purposes in the minds of the hon. Members who put them forward, it is not surprising that the Act has shown some imperfections in practice.
We have now had about five years' experience of the working of the Act, in the course of which certain technical defects have, by common consent, been exposed. It is the limited purpose of this Bill to remedy those defects. Although it is a matter on which opinions may differ, it has seemed to the Government that the provisions of the 1959 Act are effective to protect works of genuine literary, artistic or other merit. This should not, I think, be judged in the light of one or two disputed cases that have attracted publicity, but as a whole. Taken as a whole it appears that the effect of the Act, whether directly or indirectly, has been permissive to works having or claiming literary merit. Indeed, there is a considerable section of public opinion which believes that it has been too permissive.
The provisions of the 1959 Act to some extent represented a compromise between, on the one hand, the need to prevent the circulation of obscene material which might have harmful effect and, on the other, the desire to reduce as far as possible the restraints on personal liberty. In the Government's view, the compromise then reached, while, naturally, it has not pleased everyone—and it has been criticised from both directions by different people—has worked out not too badly in practice. In bringing forward this Bill, therefore, it has not been our intention to disturb the compromise or the arrangements to which the 1959 Act gave effect.
Our limited object is, as I have said, to remedy the defects brought to light by judicial decisions. I am, of course, well aware that some hon. Members might like to see more fundamental changes made, in one direction or another. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has asked me to apologise to the House for the fact that he is unable to be present this afternoon because of a long-standing official engagement in the north of England. I would emphasise that this engagement has not been in the constituency of my right hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General, who will be winding up the debate. My right hon. Friend asked me also to give an assurance that he will consider carefully any views which hon. Members may express or any suggestions which they may put forward.
It is clear that the Act has been less effective than Parliament had intended in checking the dissemination of pornography for which no literary or other merit could possibly be claimed. Defects have been exposed which have had the unfortunate effect of handicapping the police in the discharge of their responsibilities. I am sure that the House will share the Government's view that these defects should be remedied without delay.
It will be recalled that my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, West (Mrs. McLaughlin) initiated a debate on the Adjournment on the subject of obscene publications on 3rd December last year. I took the opportunity then of explaining how the law operated and the steps which had been taken by the authorities under existing powers to check the increasing flood of pornographic material. Without going over all the ground which I went over in that debate, it may help to illustrate the size of the problem if I remind hon. Members of some of the figures which I then gave.
Since the beginning of 1961 over 1 million books, representing over 1,000 different titles, had been seized as obscene at the ports under Customs legislation, and a further 360,000 books had been forfeited by courts following the institution of proceedings under the Obscene Publications Act. These figures obviously represented a considerable effort by the enforcement authorities. It is a distasteful task, and the task has to go on, but the police will be severely handicapped as long as the gaps in the law which I will describe are allowed to remain.
I do not intend to recapitulate all the terms of the 1959 Act, but perhaps I might remind the House of the test of obscenity set out in that Act. It is as follows:
For the purposes of this Act an article shall be deemed to be obscene if its effect or (where the article comprises two or more distinct articles) the effect of any one of its items is, if taken as a whole, such as to tend to deprave and corrupt persons who are likely, having regard to all the relevant circumstances, to read, see or hear the matter contained or embodied in it.
Hon. Members will observe that this test is not absolute. It requires the court, in determining the corrupting tendency of a work, to have regard to

the circumstances of publication, or intended publication.
The effect of this is that a book which may lawfully be published to adults may be adjudged obscene in the hands of young persons, or, to take another example, what is fit for a member of the medical profession may be obscene to the layman. That is the basic principle on which tie law of obscenity rests, and it is important to remember it in considering the defects in the present law and the proposals in the Bill for remedying them.
I did not have the good fortune to take part in the earlier debates, but I have studied very carefully everything that was said in the Select Committee, in the House itself, and in the Standing Committee which considered the 1959 Bill. Having read all the debates very carefully, I was particularly struck by the care and assiduity with which hon. Members addressed themselves to trying to foresee and forestall every imaginable case in which the Act might go wrong in its application. But it was impossible to foresee everything.
I observed that hon. Members were much exercised by the possibility that in particular cases the courts might find that there could be no corruption of a particular person because that person was already totally corrupt. They did not contemplate the more paradoxical possibility of the courts finding that there could be no corruption of a particular person because that person was vocationally immune from corruption. Yet that is exactly what happened.
The principal defect in the Act flows from the decision of the Court of Criminal Appeal in the case of Regina v. Clayton that there is no offence of publishing an obscene article under Section 2 of the 1959 Act where the act of publication charged is to a person who, because of his experience and maturity, is not susceptible to the article's corrupting qualities. The person concerned in that case was a police officer.
Following this decision, the police can no longer base prosecutions on test purchases of obscene material made by police officers, and it is frequently impossible to get evidence of publication in other ways. There were also two other defects revealed by the courts. In Mella v. Monahan,


the Divisional Court held that the exposure of priced articles in a shop was not an offer for sale and so not a publication of the articles within the meaning of the relevant Section of the 1959 Act, and consequently a display of obscene matter was no offence under the Act.
Finally, in the case of Straker v. Director of Public Prosecutions, the Divisional Court held that photographic negatives could not be forfeited under the procedure provided under Section 3 of the 1959 Act since the negatives themselves were not intended to be published for gain. Hon. Members will observe that the effect of the first two cases is that a criminal prosecution cannot be brought in the absence of evidence of actual publication of an article to a person who can be shown to have been liable to be corrupted by it.
While it may not be difficult to obtain evidence of sales, evidence of sales to persons liable to corruption may be exceedingly difficult, if not impossible. The persons who may be expected to complain to the police about the book which they have purchased are not likely to be themselves susceptible to any corrupting qualities it may have.
In these circumstances the substantial penalties which Parliament intended should be available to deal with purveyors of pornography cannot be inflicted by the courts. In many cases the only course open to the police under the Act is to bring proceedings for forfeiture. In such proceedings it suffices to bring evidence that the articles are being kept for publication for gain in circumstances from which it appears likely that they would be published to persons liable to be corrupted by them. But forfeiture alone is not an adequate deterrent. The loss of obscene matter is something which the commercial traffickers in pornography have been prepared to bear in the knowledge that the sanctions of the criminal law are unlikely to reach them.
Moreover, as the Straker case illustrates, there are limitations to what can be forfeited as the law now stands. It is obviously a relatively simple matter to run off further obscene prints from a negative to replace prints forfeited by order of the courts. The control would be more effective clearly if the courts had

power to forfeit negatives as well as the prints.
This, then, is the background of the Bill, to which I now turn in detail. Clause I will remedy the weaknesses in the law disclosed in the first two cases which I mentioned, by creating a new offence of having an obscene article for publication for gain. This offence will carry the same penalty as the existing offence under Section 2 of the 1959 Act of publishing an obscene article, namely, up to three years' imprisonment and a fine on indictment, and six months' imprisonment or a £100 fine on summary conviction. It will be subject to the same defences as the existing offence, including the defence under Section 4 of the 1959 Act that publication of the article is justified as being for the public good on the ground that it would be in the interests of, inter alia, literature.
The enactment of this new provision will clearly dispose of the difficulty caused by the decision in Mella v. Monahan that the exposure of an article for sale in a shop is not an offer for sale and does not, therefore, constitute an offence of publication under Section 2 of the 1959 Act. The exposure will be evidence that the article is for publication for gain.
The new provision will also overcome the difficulty which arises out of the Clayton case, what has been called the case of the incorruptible policeman. Clause 1(3,b) provides that for the purpose of the new offence the question whether an article is obscene is to be determined by reference to any publication which may reasonably be supposed to have been in the contemplation of the accused.
Briefly, I interpolate here that towards the end of Clause 2 there is a misprint. The reference to Section 1(2,b) should read as a reference to Section 1(3,b), and it will be necessary to correct this later,
Any sale, to a police officer or to any other person, will be evidence that the article is being kept for sale to the general public; and it will not be necessary to prove, as it is at present, that the purchaser himself is susceptible to corruption. The Clause also, by subsection (4), requires a court convicting of the new offence to order the forfeiture of the articles concerned, thus obviating the


need to obtain a separate forfeiture order from a magistrate under the powers available under the present Act.
Clause 2 of the Bill goes on to deal with photographic negatives and other articles, for example, moulds and the "skins" from which copies of a duplicated document are taken, designed for the reproduction or manufacture of obscene articles for gainful publication. The effect of the Clause is that negatives, moulds, and so on, intended to be used for this purpose will be liable to seizure, and it will also be an offence to keep them with that object. This provision will remedy the defect in the law exposed by the decision in Straker's case.
There is also a provision providing for the determination of the obscenity of the articles by reference to the circumstances in which the articles to be manufactured from them are likely to have been published.
My right hon. Friend and I have received a large number of complaints both from hon. Members on both sides of the House and from the general public protesting about the volume and widespread distribution of pornography up and down the country. My right hon. Friend entirely shares the concern that has been expressed on this question, and he is determined to see that the law is adequate to protect people, and especially the young, from the possibility of corruption by this undesirable material.
The Government consider that it is imperative that the enforcement authorities should be given adequate powers to suppress this harmful traffic, and careful examination of all the relevant issues has satisfied them that the Bill now before the House contains all the additional powers that are needed for that purpose.
I wish again to emphasise that the Bill is intended primarily to deal with books and magazines which no reasonable person would judge to have any conceivable literary merit. It is not directed to the case of serious literary works of the kind which the original sponsors of the 1959 Act were anxious to protect. The protective provisions written into that Act are left untouched by the present Bill: it neither strengthens nor weakens them. Nor does it alter in any material way the principles on

which the law rests, and which Parliament adopted at that time after exhaustive examination of the whole of this intricate subject.
I am confident that hon. Members on both sides will support the Government's objectives in seeking to impose additional checks on pornography, and I accordingly invite the House to give its approval to the Bill.

6.15 p.m.

Mr. Niall MacDermot: I think I am right in saying that this is the first time for over 100 years that any Government have taken the initiative in presenting an obscene publications Bill to Parliament. It was Aristotle, I think, who said that courage was not the opposite of fear but was the golden mean between fear and temerity. I do not know whether the Government's action on this occasion is to be classified as an act of courage or an act of temerity, but, whichever it may be, it is a matter for great regret that the Home Secretary is not here himself to introduce the Bill, explain it to the House and seek to justify it.
I say that because I wish to make clear at the outset that, grateful as we are to the Under-Secretary of State for the very clear way in which he has presented the Bill and the Government's view of it, I for my part cannot accept his statement that the Bill in no way departs in principle from the admittedly agreed compromise Measure which resulted in the 1959 Act.
Unlike the 1959 Act, the present Bill is not, as far as I know, the outcome of any widespread public discussion or concern calling for amending legislation. We know that the extent to which pornographic literature is being sold has been raised and that concern has been expressed that more effective steps should be taken by the police to deal with it. What we have to consider is whether the powers sought under this Bill are really necessary for that purpose.
I should make two matters clear at the outset. First, in what I say I am speaking only for myself and not on behalf of the party to which I belong. The view which my right hon. and hon. Friends take, which I fully share, is that the subject matter of this Bill is one which ought properly to be left to a free vote


of the House, as was the 1959 Bill which resulted in the Act which it is now sought to amend. I hope that on the Government side the same view will be taken and that we shall find this matter freely discussed and decided by individual hon. Members. There is no party issue involved at all.
Secondly, I wish to make perfectly clear that in any questions which I may raise or views which I may express, the last thing I want to do—I am sure that all hon. Members feel the same—is to impose any unreasonable fetter upon the police or the Director of Public Prosecutions in dealing with the trade in pornography. There have always been differences, and I am sure that there always will be differences, on how far the arm of the law should extend in restricting the publication of matters dealing with questions particularly of sex; but I think that all of us, or almost all of us, are agreed that there is a vast field of pornographic dross which no one would seek to defend at all, what Lord Birkett called, in the previous debates, dirt for dirt's sake.
Nevertheless, while we do not want to hamper the police unreasonably in dealing with what, I think, was happily referred to as "pure pornography," it is important that we do not forget our equal responsibility to seek to preserve the fair, moderate and humane character of our criminal law, to preserve the freedom of genuine artistic and literary endeavour and to protect them from the unduly censorious attitude of the prim and the prudish. It is the old problem of finding the right balance in the conflict between preserving freedom and preventing the abuse of freedom.
The first comment that I make on the Bill is that the Explanatory Memorandum is most misleading. It states—and this was the purport of the Under-Secretary of State's speech—that the purpose of the Bill is merely to remedy certain deficiencies in the Obscene Publications Act, 1959, which have been brought to light by subsequent judicial decisions. That wording is, I suggest, apt in describing Clause 2, but, as I shall hope to show, is quite inapt in describing the fundamental changes in the criminal law which Clause 1 proposes to effect.
The Bill does two things. Clause 2 remedies, quite clearly, a defect which

was brought to light by the case of Straker v. The Director of Public Prosecutions and extends the criminal law to include within the 1959 Act negatives of pornographic photographs as well as the prints which are made from those negatives and similar cases in which pornographic material is reproduced from some master copy. I do not think that any of us realised at the time of the 1959 debates that we had left this gap. I am sure that if we had done we would have closed it. I shall be very surprised if any hon. Member opposes in any way the object of Clause 2.
Clause 1, however, raises much wider questions because it proposes a major change in the law. It proposes for the first time to make people guilty of a criminal offence in relation to obscene publications even though they have never published them to anyone at all. Mere possession will, in the circumstances defined, be sufficient to result in a criminal conviction.
Under the existing law, there are two sorts of proceedings—forfeiture proceedings and criminal prosecution. Forfeiture proceedings are to enable pornographic literature and other pornographic material to be seized and destroyed. It is designed to frustrate the trade in pornographic literature by the seizure of bulk stocks. I imagine that the vast majority of the 360,000 books which the Under-Secretary of State said had been destroyed would all be destroyed under the forfeiture proceedings. In those proceedings, all that the prosecution has to do is to move against the occupier of the premises where the goods are seized that the articles are being "kept for publication for gain"—it has to prove, of course, that they are obscene publications within the definition—and that they are likely to be published in circumstances which would be harmful in the sense defined in the Act, namely, that they would tend to "deprave or corrupt" persons likely to see, read or hear the contents.
But I stress that it is not necessary in those proceedings to prove actual publication. A criminal prosecution under the 1959 Act for publishing an obscene article, like the old common law offence which it largely replaces, does, however, require proof of publication


and, indeed, it is the act of publication which is the essence of the offence—publication in circumstances which are likely to do actual harm to someone. It is important to remember, too, that until the 1959 Act actual publication also had to be proved before even a destruction order could be obtained under the forfeiture proceedings.
It was as a result of representations made by the police to the Select Committee in 1957 that the Select Committee recommended, and Parliament subsequently agreed, that the police should be relieved of the necessity of proving actual publication in order to obtain a destruction order. That is all that the police asked of the Select Committee. At no time did they ask that mere possession should be a sufficient basis for a criminal prosecution and, as far as I know, it was never suggested during the discussion of the 1959 Act.
I therefore hope that the House will agree with me that a change of this kind is not a minor technical change to remedy a defect. It is a basic alteration in the scope of the criminal law on obscene publications. It may be a right thing to do and there may be a good case for it, but if we do it let us recognise what we are doing and let us understand the grounds which justify it. In my submission, a strong case must be made out by the Home Secretary before we extend the criminal law to this extent.
There is a well recognised distinction in the whole of our criminal law between mere preparation to commit a crime and the actual commission of a crime or an attempt to commit a crime. An attempt to commit any crime is a common law misdemeanour and is an offence just as much as the crime. If a prospective criminal goes not further than to prepare to commit a crime, he does not bring himself within the ambit of the criminal law. It is an unusual thing, although it is not unknown, in our criminal law for mere possession of an article to be a criminal offence, whatever may be the motive or intent. If, for example a burglar or housebreaker has housebreaking implements in his home and a policeman by day goes to his house and finds them in his house, although it is clear and, indeed, is admitted by the man that he has them with the intention of using them for

housebreaking, he has not committed a criminal offence and cannot be prosecuted.
With the exception of licensed goods, such as dangerous drugs and firearms, it is rare for mere possession of an article to be the subject of a criminal offence. It happens in the case of offensive weapons provided the possession takes place in public but not in a man's home. It happens in the special case of flick-knives under the 1959 legislation. It is proposed in a Bill which is before the House at the moment that it should apply in the case of certain drugs—I refer to the legislation to deal with the "purple heart" problem—but otherwise it is unusual.
The Explanatory Memorandum seeks to justify this change in the law on the basis of the two decisions referred to by the Under-Secretary of State. The first is Clayton's case in which it was held that no offence was committed under the 1959 Act. In that case publication was made through an experienced police officer who was not susceptible to the article's corrupting qualities. It is beyond my comprehension how that decision can have occasioned surprise to anyone in the, hon. Gentleman's Department or can be thought to have brought to light any deficiency in the law.
That decision went to the root of the basis of the law as this House quite deliberately and consciously decided it in 1959, namely, that the test of obscenity was not to look objectively at the material and to say, "That is obscene" but to look at the circumstances of a e individual publication and say whether the publication of that material was likely to tend to deprave or corrupt anyone. How anyone can have thought, applying that test, that to sell matter to an experienced police officer who for years had been doing nothing but dealing with obscene publications was likely to tend to deprave or corrupt passes my understanding. The matter was made perfectly clear in the debates which we had at the time and it results from the words in the definition Clause which has already been read to the House, namely, that one must test the publication with regard to the persons who are likely, having regard


to all the relevant circumstances, to read, see or hear it.
When the Solicitor-General of the day was introducing those words to the Standing Committee on 4th March, 1959, he said:
What we are aiming at…is to leave out of account in any specific proceedings circumstances other than those surrounding the publication that is charged, and the circumstances flowing from that publication.
On the same occasion he went on to say:
We thought that the right test would be to consider, objectively, who was likely to be reached by the publication, and not, subjectively, what were the expectations of the person publishing it."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee C, 4th March, 1959; c. 11 and 35.]
In the light of that wording, it is difficult to see how anyone in the Home Office could have thought of making sale to a police officer a criminal offence.
The second decision was the case of Mella v. Monahan. That was a decision that mere exposure for sale is not an offence since it is not within the definition of publication in the Act. Again, I do not see how anyone can say that that defect, if defect it be, was brought to light by that case.
That omission in the Bill, as it then was, was specifically referred to by Lord Denning in the Second Reading debate on the Bill in another place on 2nd June, 1959, when he said:
Let me take another instance, which occurred in Liverpool only a little while ago. A bookseller obtained a perfectly reputable medical book and displayed it in his window, opening it at a page on which there was a diagram of the female sex organs. He did it for the purposes of his trade, to attract people to his shop. That is not covered by the provisions of this Bill."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 2nd June, 1959; Vol. 216, c. 504.]
It was then clearly drawn to the attention of the Government and, presumably, that was deliberately omitted from the Bill.
I take the view that it would be right to extend the law to include exposure for sale in that kind of way in a shop window within the provisions of the criminal law. To achieve that, however, it is not necessary to make the wide change which is proposed in Clause 1 of the Bill. All that would be needed is to add to the definition of publication in Section 1(3,a) of the Act the words:
or expose it for sale or for letting on hire".

There would be a clear precedent for such a provision in the amending Restriction of Offensive Weapons Act, 1959 (Amendment) Act, 1961, which made exposure of flick knives for sale a criminal offence.
That would, incidentally, overcome the difficulty which the police apparently say they face as a result of the decision that sale to a police officer is not an offence within the Act, because it would not then be necessary to prove a sale to a police officer. All that the officer would need to do would be to prove that the article was exposed for sale and then give evidence to show the type of persons who frequent the shop and who would be liable to be reached by that exposure.
A further reason for not extending the criminal law to mere possession is that extension to mere possession would mean that a person might be convicted of a criminal offence, not for something which he is proved to have done or to have intended to do, but merely for something which the court speculates that he might do. That arises in this way. As has already been stated, no article is obscene per se under our law. It is not obscene in the abstract. It is obscene only in relation to an actual or contemplated publication which is likely to deprave or corrupt someone. This is fundamental to the whole of our law on this subject.
Where there is a prosecution for actual publication, there is no problem; the court can look at the circumstances of the publication and the publication which is likely to flow from it. Where we are dealing with forfeiture proceedings, the position under the existing Act of 1959 is covered by Section 3(7), which states:
For the purposes of this section the question whether an article is obscene shall be determined on the assumption that copies of it would be published in any manner likely having regard to the circumstances in which it was found, but in no other manner".
That involves an element of speculation as to the likely publication that would flow from the possession. It may, however, be thought that no great harm would result from that because there is no question of any criminal prosecution and no conviction for any criminal offence.
In Clause 1(3,b) of the Bill, however, the provision is that
the question whether the article is obscene shall be determined by reference to any such publication for gain of the article as in the circumstances he may fairly be supposed to have


had in contemplation and to any further publication that could reasonably be expected to follow from it, but not to any other publication.
What someone may fairly be supposed to have in contemplation is hardly a satisfactory basis for a criminal conviction. It is certainly not one that would appeal to the majority of common lawyers. Before we put such provision into our law, we would want to be satisfied that there are very good reasons for it.
I should like the Solicitor-General to elaborate rather more the reasons why the Government want to go beyond merely making exposure for sale a criminal offence and want to extend what has up to now been merely the field for forfeiture proceedings—namely, mere possession—and make that a criminal offence as well. It may be argued that if one merely made exposure for sale a criminal offence, this would not enable the criminal law to reach the man who keeps his obscene publications, as it were, under the counter.
My answer to that is to ask why that should be made a criminal offence if a person does keep them under the counter unless and until he is proved to have taken them out from under the counter and published them to someone in circumstances which are likely to be harmful. That man could effectively be reached by forfeiture proceedings. As long as the police can get prima facie evidence to obtain a search warrant, they can go and search, seize the material, bring it before a magistrate and, unless the defendant can prove justification for himself, obtain a destruction order. Surely, this should be a sufficient and effective means for checking this trade where it is known to exist. Indeed, Lord Chief Justice Parker, in giving the decision of the court in Clayton's case, pointed that out. At the end of his judgment, he said:
We appreciate that our decision … may handicap the police in securing convictions for such offences, but, nevertheless, test purchases will enable them to obtain a search warrant and seize obscene material and also in many cases to bring conspiracy charges.
I should like to know whether we can be given further explanation of the difficulties which the police have encountered which have led to the proposal

to make the wide change which is proposed by the Clause. It is not something which was asked for by the police before the Select Committee and, as far as I know, there has been no public request for any such powers.
In this connection, can we also be informed what the present practice is with regard to disclaimers? Before the Select Committee, it was explained that, where the police seized obscene material under a search warrant, they frequently did not take forfeiture proceedings. Instead, there was an arrangement by which the owner of the premises—the occupier—would sign a statement disclaiming any interest in or property in the material and it would then be taken and destroyed by the police. This avoided any further proceedings before a court.
I have doubts as to whether this is a very desirable practice. I had thought and assumed that when the police were given the additional powers granted under the 1959 Act the disclaimer procedure would cease. I have been informed—and I do not know whether this is right or not—that that is not so and that the disclaimer procedure is continuing. Is that so or not? Following from it and related to it, if the Government obtain the new criminal offence they seek in Clause 1 of this Bill, what, as a matter of practice, is proposed to be done?
In what circumstances is it thought that the police or the Director of Public Prosecutions will continue to act under the old forfeiture procedure and in what circumstances would they take a criminal proceeding under Clause 1? Why, one may ask, should not the police always prosecute if, as will be the case in any circumstances where they could take forfeiture proceedings, they will have evidence before them of the commission of a criminal offence under this Clause? Who is to decide whether to take criminal proceedings or merely to go for forfeiture? Will it be the police or the D.P.P.? How will they decide and on what principle?
Does it mean that some practice will grow up whereby if a bookseller comes forward, as it were, and does not cause trouble or difficulty, forfeiture proceedings will be launched whereas if he shows fight and wants to contest that


the matter is obscene, or that it would be likely to be published in harmful circumstances, he will be met with criminal prosecution?
It seems to me that all sorts of undesirable consequences could flow from having these two separate procedures running parallel with exactly the same facts having to be proved in both types of proceedings. If the circumstances disclose a criminal offence, will it not be the duty of the police to prosecute? It has been suggested—it was referred to in the Guardian today—that it is necessary to retain the forfeiture procedure so as not to clog the work of the courts because if, in every case, criminal prosecution was to be brought this might lead to many contested cases and would hold up the work of the courts.
I find it difficult to understand that view. After all, under forfeiture proceedings the matter has to be brought before the court and if the defendant wants to contest the issue of obscenity he is perfectly free to do so. If that is the argument, surely it shows that it is not necessary to have the power to prosecute in order to disrupt the trade. If it is intended that, in the majority of cases, the police will continue to proceed by way of forfeiture, one wonders what the basis is of the Government's case for saying that they must have this power to prosecute in order effectively to be able to stamp out the pornography trade.
Another important matter depends on the question as to where the police or the D.P.P. go by way of forfeiture proceedings or prosecution—namely, the question of the right of a decision on obscenity or the defence of literary merit being determinable by a jury. The responsible book trade has been very disturbed recently by the nature of the proceedings in the case of "Fanny Hill". I do not think that anyone contemplated, when the 1959 Act was going through the House, that a test case for a work with serious literary pretensions would arise by way of forfeiture proceedings.
We all assumed that forfeiture proceedings would be restricted to the more obvious pornography and that any serious issue as to obscenity would be tested before a jury. Indeed, the Solicitor-

General of the day told the Standing Committee on the Bill:
I want, first, to emphasise that it will be a jury that will decide."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee C, 4th March, 1959; c. 35.]
The hon. and learned Gentleman knew, of course, that there could be summary proceedings, but he clearly had in mind that borderline cases—which is what we were discussing—would be decided by a jury. This is a point which some of my hon. Friends may wish to develop further. All I want to say at this stage about it is that if the right to trial by jury is to be secure in all cases, then it can be done in one of three ways. The first is by abolishing forfeiture altogether as a separate procedure and making forfeiture an ancillary order resulting from a conviction for the proposed new offence. The second way is by amending the forfeiture procedure so as to enable the issue of obscenity or literary merit to be referred to a jury. This would mean a considerable procedural change in our law and I can see the difficulties in the way.
The third and perhaps easiest solution, if it could be devised, would be an administrative practice developing whereby, if a serious defence of non-obscenity or of literary merit was raised by the defendant, the police themselves, at the request of the defence and on the advice of the D.P.P., would proceed by way of a criminal prosecution. If that were done, it would ensure that the defence would always have the right to elect for trial and enable the issue to be decided by a jury.
It is important to realise—because there may be misunderstanding—that the decision in Clayton's case would not prevent, in a proper case, what I might call an "arranged" prosecution as a test case, which is rather what happened in the case of "Lady Chatterley's Lover", when, by arrangement, a police officer called at Penguin Books and purchased a copy which was the subject of prosecution in order to test the issue of obscenity or otherwise of the book.
The decision in Clayton's case does not, in my view, stop convenient arrangements of that kind being made. All that would be needed would be a sale by a publisher to a bookseller of a book subject to prosecution, the bookseller making clear


his intention, if allowed to do so, to expose it publicly for sale and to sell it to sundry members of the public who might ask for it.
There is one more matter I wish to touch on briefly. Anxieties have been expressed about resort to prosecution for the common law misdemeanour of conspiracy. At common law, any agreement between two or more persons to commit a crime is in itself the crime of conspiracy. Consequently, an agreement to publish obscene matter is a criminal offence even though no actual publication results. There have been cases, perfectly proper cases, in which people have been convicted and sent to prison for conspiracies to publish obscene matter.
The anxieties which have been expressed cover two points. The first is lest the protection afforded by the 1959 Act by the defence of literary merit should be sidestepped by the prosecution proceeding on a prosecution for conspiracy to corrupt public morals, as was done in the "Ladies' Directory" case. It is important to notice that that was not a case of an obscene publication. As far as I know, no prosecution of that kind has ever been presented when dealing with an obscene publication. All I would seek is an assurance that there is no intention when dealing with obscene matter to proceed by way of a prosecution of that kind for a conspiracy to corrupt public morals but that proceedings will always be taken on a conspiracy to commit an offence under the Obscene Publications Act, which would then ensure that the literary merit defence was available.
The second fear is lest the limits laid down in the Act for punishment, which on indictment are three years' imprisonment or an unlimited fine, might be exceeded by a prosecution for conspiracy. There is no limit to the period of imprisonment which can be imposed by the courts on a conviction at common law of the offence of conspiracy, of course. Perhaps this is a matter more properly dealt with in Committee, but it would be interesting to know whether there have been any cases where a conspiracy conviction of this kind has resulted in any penalty heavier than the three years' maximum provided in the 1959 Act.
I have, offered some critical questions about the scope of Clause 1. I recommend

to my hon. and right hon. Friends that this is not a Bill which we should oppose on Second Reading. The case for what is asked for in Clause 2 is quite unanswerable. Clearly, there is a need for some amending legislation in this respect, and I would consider some amending legislation dealing with the problem covered by Clause 1. However, the Bill goes considerably further than has been suggested so far by those presenting it on behalf of the Government and we will need to consider its terms and scope very carefully in Committee.

6.53 p.m.

Sir Cyril Black: I welcome the introduction of the Bill. It is a modest contribution in a field in which a more imaginative and far-reaching Bill might have been more useful, but, in so far as it closes certain loopholes which have been revealed in the 1959 Act, it is useful and will serve a useful purpose. I therefore hope that it will receive a Second Reading.
When the 1959 legislation was before Parliament, there was a general hope that it would improve the position about the publication of pornographic literature and would make it easier for the courts to deal with this evil. That Bill was accepted by many people at that time as being a useful piece of legislation. Of course, it is very difficult for laymen, as distinct from members of the legal profession, to understand exactly what the consequences of legislation of this type will be. It is certainly correct to say that many people have been very disappointed with the consequences of the 1959 Act, as those consequences appear to be entirely different from what was then expected by many people.
The position now is that obscene books are reaching the market on a scale which has not been experienced before, at any rate not in this century. Not only are these books coming on to the market on a vast scale, but they are being offered for sale at very low prices, which brings them within the reach of a very wide public, particularly within the reach of many young people.
I am certain that a great deal of literature is being freely offered for sale in bookshops and on bookstalls which would not have been tolerated for a moment in this country as recently as 25 years ago. In the past, we in this


country were inclined to take a rather superior view about the conditions which existed here in these matters in comparison with those which used to exist in Paris. For instance, in Paris in particular, it used to be the case that a great deal of literature was freely available which would not have been tolerated in this country.
However, all my information leads me to believe that the position has now been completely reversed. I am assured by those who ought to know that there are books now being offered for sale in this country by the thousand and the tens of thousands which have been completely banned in Paris, where their sale would not be allowed in any circumstances.
I have already said that one of the most sinister effects of this trade in pornographic literature is that upon many young people who have fallen a prey to this stuff. It is not surprising that we have today a rising tide of juvenile delinquency and a very great increase in illegitimacy, considering the temptations which young people are facing, temptations more serious and more insidious than were faced by hon. Members when we were young. I believe that there is evidence that public opinion has been changing in this matter and that it will greatly welcome the Bill and any further measures which the Government may think it necessary to introduce to deal with what is now generally recognised by the great mass of the people as a situation which can no longer be tolerated.
We hear a good deal today about the misdeeds of a small minority of young people, but I am bound to say that the young people who, in the last few days organised a petition about pornographic literature and presented that petition to the Prime Minister at 10 Downing Street, are to be greatly congratulated on the concern which they have shown in a matter which they realise to be vital to the country's future.
While, for many years, public opinion has been swinging against what were perhaps rightly regarded as the undue restraints of the Victorian period, the time has come when many people feel that the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction and that a halt

must be called. I believe that the Government are taking a useful, if limited, step in the right direction in presenting this Bill.
It is perhaps strange to realise the comparative lack of attention which was given to this matter by Parliament until the Bill was introduced. I suppose that there never was a time when there was so much concern in this country about clean air and clean food. No one will quarrel with that, but we have not shown the same sort of concern about clean books; and it is perhaps relevant to point out that dirty air and dirty food can poison the bodies of men and women, but dirty books poison the soul, which is an infinitely more serious matter.
To be quite fair, I think that we must recognise that a lot of this flood of pornographic literature comes from abroad, a great deal of it, unfortunately, from the United States of America. I believe that Customs and Excise officials are doing what can reasonably be expected of them in seizing these books at the ports and thereby preventing their reaching the market in this country, but it is clear that although they are doing their best they cannot be effective to the point of dealing with this evil in a complete sense.
I very much hope that the Home Secretary will continue his efforts to bring about a change of policy on the part of the authorities in the United States whereby they will take action on their side of the Atlantic to stop these books from leaving their ports so that we are not left with the invidious and difficult task of dealing with the books when they arrive at our ports.
Since the Bill was published, voices have been raised to try to persuade the Government to weaken some of the Bill's modest proposals. I beg my right hon. Friend to turn a deaf ear to any blandishments of that kind, and to refuse in any way to weaken a Bill which, in the view of many people, is only a modest contribution to deal with this evil.
I hope that in Committee there will be an opportunity for a full consideration of Section 4 of the 1959 Act. I hope that that Section will either be repealed, or, if a case can be made out for it not being repealed in toto, that it will, at


any rate, be amended to remove some of the evil that it has done. I shall not develop the argument on that point at any length, because it is, after all, a Committee point, and the matter can be better argued at that stage, but it is clear that the law has been greatly weakened by that Section of the 1959 Act, and I welcome the opportunity which the Bill gives to have it considered in Committee.
I hope that the House and the Government will never forget that huge profits are being made out of this pornographic literature business, and that behind the business there are powerful, faceless, men who will stop at nothing to carry on this monstrous but profitable traffic. I am sure that the Government should have that in mind, and that they should resist any blandishments which may be exercised on them to weaken in one way or another the modest proposals of the Bill.
I am certain that if it is necessary to do so for the continuance of their profitable business the people behind this traffic will employ writers of literary merit instead of semi-illiterates who, at present, are employed to write most of these books, and that if they do so they will endeavour to bring their trade within the protection afforded to them by Section 4 of the 1959 Act.
The whole proposition of Section 4 seems to many people, and certainly to me, to be based on a fallacy, because dirt is still dirt, no matter how beautiful is the casket in which it may be contained.

7.5 p.m.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: The hon. Member for Wimbledon (Sir C. Black) contented himself with not coming to close terms with the Bill but with merely deploying in general terms the case for as much restriction as could be imposed at any one time. Therefore, I do not want to reply in great detail to what he said. I was, however, surprised when the hon. Gentleman said that at the time he had been a supporter of the 1959 Bill, which he thought was a reasonable and helpful piece of legislation in the circumstances. I think that his support, if it existed at the time, must have been given rather more silently than the support which he has given the Bill this evening, but

perhaps he was rather working behind the scenes.

Sir C. Black: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not misrepresent me. I am sure that I did not say that I supported the 1959 Bill. I said that I was led to believe, by people on whose opinion I depended, that the Bill was likely to have the effect of making it easier for the authorities to deal with pornographic literature. I was mistaken in that belief, or I was ill-advised.

Mr. Jenkins: I do not know on whose opinion the hon. Gentleman depends, and I am, therefore, not able to follow that line of argument, but he indicated tonight that in 1959 he thought the Measure was reasonable and helpful. Now the hon. Gentleman wants to go back on the 1959 Act in a way which the Government, through the Joint Under-Secretary of State, have made clear that they do not contemplate, and I hope that we can have from the Solicitor-General an assurance that the Government will resist any attempt to do away with Section 4 of that Act, which was the whole basis of the compromise at that time. If we get that assurance, it will put the whole matter in a different light. The compromise made in 1959 would be meaningless if it were tampered with in this way, and I hope that we can have that assurance this evening so that in Committee we can approach this matter with as much good will as possible.
As the sponsor of the 1959 Act, I have no objection in principle to amending legislation at the present time. I think that not to take that line would be to show an almost excessive attachment to one's own work, which I would not want to do, for two reasons. First, because to a large extent it was not my own work. Apart from those closely associated with me in pushing through the 1959 Bill, as the Minister said, it was a compromise Measure. We were responsible for pushing very hard for the provision about literary merit and public good for the provision that the work should be considered as a whole and not merely on the basis of isolated passages, and for the provision that it should be considered on the basis of the likely audience at whom the book was directed, and that we should get


away from the old provision of considering into whose hands the book might fall. Those were the provisions for which we were responsible, and I am glad that they were enacted.
What one might called the machinery of prosecution provisions came from the Home Office draftsmen and were broadly in accord with what police and prosecuting authorities asked for in their evidence before the Select Committee. If loopholes have been shown up, the responsibility must to a large extent rest with those who put forward the evidence and those who asked for things, and, having got them, found them insufficient. I do not blame them, but I would not like it to be thought that these loopholes have arisen because we were determined not to have these matters dealt with at that time. The Bill was a compromise. The main principles of it came from those who sponsored the Bill, but the machinery by which it was to be implemented came from Government draftsmen and from Government spokesmen.
The second reason why I would not wish to oppose in principle an amending Bill. It would be extremely silly, especially in the case of a compromise Measure, not to expect that some flaws might show themselves in the course of five years. It is only reasonable that where flaws have been shown to exist they should be remedied. But those remedies should be on an all-round basis, and they should remedy the unexpected flaws which have developed in the working of the law not merely from the point of view of the police or of the prosecuting authorities but also from the point of view of reputable authors and publishers. That has not been done in the Bill as drafted. I hope that it will be done in Committee. If it is, we may then have a reasonable Bill which can go through with good will and a large measure of agreement among most of those concerned.
What do reputable authors and publishers want? What are the flaws which have developed from their point of view? There are two lesser points to which I shall refer later, but primarily their view is that there should be the right of trial by jury where the defence of literary merit is involved, and where the calling of expert witnesses is entailed. The case

in principle is that these matters—concerned with what shall be read and what should not be read, what is offensive and what is not offensive, what is corrupting and what is not corrupting—to a greater extent than almost anything else with which this House has to deal, or with which the law has to deal, are subject to individual prejudice on one side or the other.
This being so, this is a subject which, by its very nature, is peculiarly unsuited for the absolute judgment of one man, and one man alone. It is a subject which is particularly appropriate for the jury system, with 12 people to some extent balancing each other in their approach and in their prejudices. That is infinitely preferable to judgment by an individual. But there are other considerations which work in favour of the right to trial by jury.
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Derby, North (Mr. MacDermot) mentioned the "Fanny Hill" case. That exposed clearly the disadvantages of not having trial by jury in a major case. The circumstances of that case were most unsuitable for hearing in a magistrates' court. It was a major case, involving the deployment of subtle and erudite evidence, which might or might not be accepted but which it was extremely important should be heard and weighed up. It was entirely inappropriate to be heard in a dingy magistrates' court—or perhaps I should say a magistrates' dingy court—which was used to dealing with cases of summary jurisdiction, many of them involving drunks or prostitutes. It was first heard on a Monday and then adjourned to the following Monday. It was then put over to the next Saturday afternoon, and then to the following Monday week. This time-table was entirely inappropriate for a difficult case. It was impossible for the tribunal to be able to form a balanced judgment whether convincing evidence had been put forward.
Secondly, the verdict, given in that way, was unsatisfactory from everybody's point of view. It was an inconclusive verdict, because it related only to the 171 copies of the book which were seized in a certain bookshop. There have been subsequent cases in Manchester and Sheffield which indicate that it was not regarded as having settled the matter


definitely. It may be said that even if the case had been a criminal case and had been heard at the Old Bailey it would still have related only to those copies of the book which had been seized. But there would then have been one great difference. The judge, in his summing up to the jury, would have weighed up the evidence and given an indication whether great regard was being given to that part of the prosecution's case, which related largely to the circumstances existing in the bookshop in which the book was seized. The judge would have pronounced on the literary evidence, and would have said whether or not he regarded it as unconvincing, or as convincing in itself but still failing to outweigh the inherent obscenity of the book. The jury would then have been able to arrive at a verdict which would have appeared just and fair not only to those who wanted to be prosecuted and not to be dealt with by the forfeiture procedure but also to those people who took the view that the book was dangerous and should have been banned.
The "Fanny Hill" proceedings indicated overwhelmingly that this was a most unsuitable method of procedure for a major case of its kind. It indicated overwhelmingly that it was essentially a jury issue, and it was a great pity that it was not heard before a jury.
How could this be achieved? My hon. and learned Friend referred to three methods. First, we could give the defence the right to opt for prosecution under Section 2 of the 1959 Act—an option which they would have like to have been able to choose in the "Fanny Hill" case—rather than to submit to the forfeiture procedure in a case where they wished to employ the defence of literary merit. Secondly, we could provide for the empanelling of a jury, even where forfeiture only was applied for. Thirdly, we could do away with the forfeiture procedure and deal with all cases on a purely criminal basis. My own preference is for the first proposal, namely, to give the defence the right to opt for trial by jury in a case where it wishes to employ the defence of literary merit. I do not think that it would be impossible to make such a provision.
What are the objections? In the "Fanny Hill" case, the objection put for-

ward by the Solicitor-General was based on the Clayton case, which concerned the incorruptibility of the police. That has been disposed of, assuming that Clause 1 is agreed to. There also seems to be a feeling on the part of the Government—and this opinion seems to have found an echo in the speech of the hon. Member for Wimbledon—that there could be a sort of clogging up of the courts by a deliberate attempt on the part of those who wished to publish pornographic literature to opt for prosecution. They could clog up proceedings at the Old Bailey and similar courts and make it difficult for cases to go ahead.
It is difficult to believe that that would happen, and I would need some extremely strong evidence to make me believe that it would. The defence of literary merit has been raised very rarely in the past five years. It is not susceptible of being used frivolously. If there is no worth-while evidence, what man in his right mind is going to invite prosecution rather than accept the forfeiture procedure, thereby inviting arraignment before the country on a criminal charge, simply in order to deploy a frivolous defence which he knows has no chance of being accepted? If the worry of the Government is that a situation might arise in which pornographers would try to clog up the criminal courts, it is difficult to see what is the purpose of the Government in introducing Clause 1, because that Clause is designed to enable the Government to take criminal proceedings in circumstances where, without it, they would have had to take forfeiture proceedings. When criminal proceedings are taken the defence can demand trial by jury, without there being any question of literary merit.
It would, of course, be possible to argue that if we did away with the right to trial by jury in the case of a great number of offences it would be much easier to get through the work of the courts, but I am sure that that argument would not be acceptable to hon. Members on either side of the House. We must be careful about such arguments, especially where we are dealing with important matters such as the freedom to write; and the question of literary censorship.
The second provision which should have been included in the Bill is the provision that if the prosecuting authorities wish to take conspiracy proceedings there should be an explicit declaration, in statutory form, that all the safeguards of the 1959 Act would apply. Conspiracy proceedings could then be taken by the prosecuting authorities if they so wish, but if they are, they should not be the means of cutting out the Section 4 defence or of getting away from the severe but limited penalties which, after considerable discussion, were approved by Parliament in 1959. Technically, I suppose, we might otherwise go back to the farcical position of having totally unlimited penalties.
It may be argued—no doubt it will be—that such a statutory declaration in an Act is not totally necessary. Assurances have been given in the past. I think that everyone will agree that it is not a question of not believing assurances. Law officers change, Governments change, Directors of Public Prosecutions change, everybody changes in time, and it is much better to have these things written down firmly and clearly, in black and white, so that there cannot be argument about breach of faith and who exactly said and meant what. I am sure that it would have been much more satisfactory to have this brought forward in that way.
Thirdly, there should be, I think, a time limit in forfeiture proceedings. I return to the "Fanny Hill" case for a moment and for the last time. The 171 copies of the book were seized, and then nothing happened for six weeks. Then a warrant was applied for and proceedings were started. They started just when Questions were to be asked in this House as to when the proceedings were to be started, but that may or may not have been the cause. But six weeks is a long delay. I think that a period of twenty-eight days would be reasonable after which the property should be returned if no proceedings were taken.
These are the three things which, in my view, should have been in the Bill. What about the measures which are in the Bill itself? Here I go very closely indeed with my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Derby, North. It does not appear that Clause 2 is of great importance or that objection should be

taken to it, but one would like to hear it argued in a little detail in Committee. In Clause 1, one sees the point and the need for some amending legislation to deal with the point raised in the Clayton case, but I wonder whether this is not going too far, and whether by making possession with a view to sale the essence of a criminal offence we are not getting far away from the fact that regard must be had to the corrupting effect upon a likely audience which was the essence of the 1959 Act.
Like my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Derby, North, I am not surprised that the view was taken that a police officer acting as an agent provocateur should not be regarded as somebody legitimately corrupted in this way. If one is dealing with under-the-counter material, which is no doubt the objection to my hon. and learned Friend's suggestion—a very reasonable suggestion—this point could be dealt with by inserting "exposing for sale" in the relevant Section of the principal Act. If one is dealing with under-the-counter sales surely some regard must be had to their being exposed for sale, otherwise one is getting right away from a law based on corruption.
There is a case for some Amendment along the lines of Clause 1. There may even be a case for Clause 1 exactly as it stands. But we did not hear it this evening. I thought that the Minister explained the Bill lucidly and carefully this evening in his opening speech, but I do not think that he argued in detail the case for Clause 1 as it stands. It may be that if the Home Secretary, whether his unfortunate engagement is in the north or the south of England, were able to be here today he would have been able to explain it more forcibly, or more powerfully, but on previous experience of the Home Secretary I rather doubt it. At any rate, we ought to have a much more detailed deployment of the argument which made the Government think that this method, with certain dangers to individual liberty, was the only way in which they could proceed. I think that one must say that the record of the Home Office recently is not such that one can take on trust that the Home Office will always have scrupulous regard for questions of individual liberty.
None of us in this House—certainly I do not believe that anyone associated with me in these matters—has any desire to make the world safe for hard-core pornography. At the same time, I think one must see this matter in some sort of perspective. Straightforward, "pure" pornography, as it is sometimes engagingly called, is no doubt distasteful, and rightly so, to many people—no doubt to the majority of people in this country—and it is proper that the House should have regard to that. But let us remember that one is miles away from any objective evidence showing that pornography, distasteful though it may be, is a direct cause of sexual crime, or even is at all closely associated with a particularly loose way of life. When the hon. Member for Wimbledon talks about poisoning the soul, on the same basis as a tin of corned beef poisons the body, he is dealing with a matter which, I think, is a little more complex than he allows. I think that it would be extremely difficult to show on the basis of country by country studies that those countries in which pornography flourished were necessarily those countries which had a particularly loose standard of sexual behaviour. It may be the reverse.
Certainly, for what they are worth, Americal sociological studies which have been made on this subject, much more than here—it is a good idea that we should temper our prejudices with a few facts from time to time—show that the sort of people to whom pornographic literature appeals are not the people on the borderline of crime or even people living particularly licentious lives. They are, on the whole, people who lead quiet, sad, lonely, deprived and shy lives. This may not make pornography less distasteful but it puts it a little more in perspective than some people are inclined to do.
If one could show clearly and decisively that it had a direct causal relationship with criminal action then a somewhat rougher approach might be justified. I should not be worried about the question of human freedom particularly regarding the carrying of offensive weapons. I believe that the freedom to read is a good deal more important than the freedom to carry flick-knives. It is vital that we should realise that we are here dealing with a difficult subject and inevitably one has to balance two contrary

sets of extremely important considerations.
No doubt if material with any pretence to merit could be put on one side and straightforward, hard-core pornography on the other side, we could separate them completely, that, no doubt, would be a very satisfactory solution, acceptable to all of us. But all attempts to legislate on this subject have failed to do that. One is always up against the difficulty of the borderline case. There is no doubt at all that the prosecuting authority has in the past shown a somewhat unfortunate tendency to get bogged down in this border country. In the Select Committee of the House in 1957–58 I remember asking the then Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir John Nott-Bower, what would be his attitude if, in fact, it was really possible to get a greater measure of procedure against straightforward pornography and whether he would then be content to leave anything on the borderline which had any pretence to literary merit on one side. I said:
Supposing that it were possible to get more effective means of proceeding against the really filthy stuff, would it be a matter of comparative indifference to the Police what happened to the border-line stuff?
His answer was "Complete indifference". I said:
Even if the position in getting prosecutions was made rather more difficult?
and he replied "Completely". Yet the prosecuting authorities seem fascinated by this very borderline country. It is therefore difficult to approach this on the basis of completely separating the completely hard-core pornography from the borderline cases.
To sum up, I do not contest the need for some amending legislation. I think that the test—I am sure that this test will be applied by great numbers of people in the literary world—the test of the Government's good intentions, the test of their claimed desire to get certain powers which they need for use against hard-core pornography while in no way wishing to treat literature individually unfairly, is whether they would be prepared to grant trial by jury. If they are, their assurances will have some meaning. If they are not, one is bound to look at those assurances extremely sceptically.
I am sorry that the Home Secretary is not present to hear what is being said and to test the feeling of the House. This is a major Measure. I do not think that the Secretary of State should bring forward a Bill, touching censorship and with his personal imprimatur clearly upon it, without being present at the Second Reading debate. I know that the right hon. Gentleman has an important engagement, but this House has a certain priority and I think that he should have been present to hear how the Measure was received by the House. I hope that his representatives will convey to him the paramount importance attaching to the question of trial by jury.

7.30 p.m.

Mr. W. R. Rees-Davies: Today, of all days, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins) must bear in mind that while the dilettante is entitled to a place, it is Santa Claus who is the winner. We have a predominant interest to ensure that the traditions of our country and the protection of the youth of the country are paramount. That is what I mean by Santa Claus. The tradition of Santa Claus for the children and the youth must remain; although we shall certainly try to find a place for the dilettante as well, provided that this does not harm the predominant traditions of this country.
I must congratulate the Home Office on bringing forward yet another Measure—there has been a long string, very nearly as many as the entries in the Derby today—and for the first time for over 100 years, there is an endeavour to suppress purulent pornography. I must tell the Home Office clearly that this is not as small a Measure as it was thought when the debate was opened. It is a strong Measure and one which will go a very long way to achieve the suppression of pornography, because it gets at the sources. I suspect that the Home Secretary, through his advisers, knows this.
In due course I shall reply briefly to the arguments advanced by the hon. Member for Stechford. But may I say this to him, and I say it with no sense of discourtesy: he must not become too much of a specialist in "Fanny Hill."

Those of us who see a lot of a certain aspect of this matter are concerned with what one can only describe as the purveyance of purulent pornography in great big loads throughout the country, but we have nothing whatever to do with the question of whether or not "Lady Chatterley's Lover" is or is not a pornographic book. Those people who are concerned with what I might call the publication of artistic talents represent less than one-hundredth of 1 per cent. of the problem with which we are dealing.
Before I turn to those matters, may I say to the hon. Member for Stechford that he cannot secure the assurance from the Solicitor-General which he wants about the protection of artistic merit because he has not read the legal case which shows that the protection has already been shot to pieces. If tomorrow I were asked to draft an indictment in order to prosecute "Lady Chatterley's Lover" I could do so, and it would go to the Old Bailey, and in a matter of weeks a conviction could be ensured; because it would not be possible to raise a defence under Section 4 of the Obscene Publications Act, 1951. It would be drafted as a conspiracy to corrupt public morals, using details in the book as being merely passages for the argument. If the hon. Member for Stechford wants the authority for that, he should read the 1962 Appeal Cases, page 226, and if he looks at pages 240 and 272 he will see the ratio decidendi of that decision.

Mr. MacDermot: I think that the hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) will agree that in that case it was stated by the Solicitor-General for the prosecution that that was not an obscene publication, and he disclaimed any attempt to prove that it was—

Mr. Rees-Davies: Mr. Rees-Davies indicated dissent

Mr. MacDermot: I see that the hon. Member is shaking his head. Perhaps he will read the report himself.

Mr. Rees-Davies: In due course and if the need arises I will do so. In fact, in that case there was a conviction over it as an obscene publication—

Mr. MacDermot: No.

Mr. Rees-Davies: When the hon. Member sees who had to argue that case he may perhaps not query the matter with me—

Mr. Roy Jenkins: Mr. Roy Jenkins rose—

Mr. Rees-Davies: I will give way now to the hon. Member for Stechford.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: What I should particularly like to ask—perhaps it can be replied to now or later—is whether the Solicitor-General and the Government accept what he has just been saying? If so, Presumably they were aware of it before. Presumably they are well briefed on this matter. If they bring forward a Bill to deal with certain flaws in the 1959 Act and say—as the Minister of State for the Home Department did—that the last thing they wish to do is to upset the main safeguards of the 1959 Act, why did not they bring forward a provision to deal with this?

Mr. Rees-Davies: The hon. Member for Stechford must not intervene to steal my speed. We shall need to amend this Act further in order to ensure that the intention of Parliament at that time is carried out. I merely produce the point at this moment to show that—I regret to say it—the whole basis of his speech is destroyed because it depends upon looking at what the law now is, but was not in 1951, as the lawyers believed it to be.
May I come now to what at any rate most of us are here to do tonight, to secure effective and increased measures against pornography. The really serious pornography of today is not merely in books. It seems to me that if we are to deal with this problem we must do so predominantly through the police courts. Let us note the various and different forms of pornography. We have films, pictures, photographs and postcards. Those are some of the worst forms of pornography which exist today. I should have thought that the ordinary procedure of seizure and dealing with them through the police courts was perfectly satisfactory. There is a large increase in the production particularly of pornographic photography and one of the really important provisions in this Bill is the provision to deal with the seizure of instruments of manufacture.
Hitherto, there has been no means of getting at them. We have not been able

to seize the cameras, the materials, the negatives, the proofs and the prints. It seems to me that it is there that we should deal with this problem rather than further down the line at the later point of distribution. It seems that the proper procedure for that is through seizure and dealing with the matter in the courts. In the great majority of the film line and photographic line there is very seldom any very serious question as to whether it is or is not pornographic. Nor is it very serious if it falls one side or the other of the borderline of pornography. This Bill goes a long way towards assisting the position of the police in that regard.
The only safeguard we have to be careful about there for the liberty of the subject is to see that purely private ones are not also seized. I remind the hon. and learned Member for Derby, North (Mr. MacDermot) that this Bill does not just provide for the seizure of obscene articles in the
ownership possession or control".
It goes on:
for publication for gain.
If it had only said that any person in possession of pornographic material should be liable to prosecution, I would not agree with it. It must, of course, be intended
for publication for gain.
It seems that the words, subject to closer consideration in Committee, are fair as they are at present drafted.
I believe that we should go further and not make the test sale or publication or offer for sale. We ought to go to the root of the matter, which is to get at the producer. I believe that there is a very strong feeling in the country today—certainly in my constituency—which wants to stop offensive distribution of pornography which is known as such. I am a little of a "mugwump" in this matter, being on both sides of the fence. Although I feel strongly that the public ought to want us to take it further, I recognise that safeguards are very necessary.
I turn now to the question of filthy postcards. This is a very big trade and there is an immense sale. What is fascinating about it is that what is a filthy postcard in one part of England is quite clean in another. What, for example, is on the wrong side of the line in Folkestone


is on the other side of the line in Margate. Folkestone is rather less robust than Margate. As a result there are different decisions. This is a big and serious matter which the House probably does not realise. Prosecutions in respect of several hundreds of postcards at a time go before magistrates and sometimes to assizes before a judge. The whole of this paraphernalia, to my mind, is needless.
In the town of Blackpool there is a very sensible committee. I think it is a sub-committee of the watch committee. The committee looks at all the picture postcards and decides if in its view any of them goes too far. If they are robust and make one laugh, however coarse they are, on the whole they are considered to be for the public good, but if they are perverted and go on the wrong side of the line, that is another matter. The town has its own censorship and, having operated it, careful note of the position is taken by the chief constable.
I believe that this is a very good system. First, the producer knows where he stands. Secondly, the local authority knows what the local people want and do not want. Thirdly, there is the assistance, by taking note, of the chief constable who is able to take into account local factors. [An HON. MEMBER: "A conspiracy."] This works extremely well. I heard the interjection. It is in fact a friendly conspiracy of all the neighbourhood for the public good.
I do not believe that we should fear self-imposed censorship. It is when we have Government-imposed censorship that we may have something to fear. I should like to see this system operated more generally. I invite my right hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General to consider to what extent it is right to give directions to the police to permit watch committees or other committees in an area to consider these matters. That would be the most effective way of dealing with them. It would save many prosecutions and a great deal of trouble. It can be done purely administratively and with the assistance of the Home Office.
What is true in such a case is equally true of a great mass of literature. Today most people do not realise how very narrow are the channels of distribution. Apart from W. H. Smith & Son and

Wyman Marshall there are practically no big concerns dealing with the sale of cheap books. If we could get an effective liaison with the distributors, genuine pornography, I am sure, could be more effectively prevented to a large extent. I recommend that we should set up as a purely voluntary body a first-class book council with all our leading distributors represented on it. We could see whether in that way they could secure a more effective control of outlets of mass-produced pornography.
I wish now to look at a narrower question. I believe that if this Bill gets at those channels and we see to what extent we can get assistance from voluntary authorities and a book council, we shall be able to prevent the vast influx of mass-produced, cheap American literature. That, to my mind, does more to deprave and corrupt the English language and the English way of life and to upset the traditions for which this country stands. Even if they are not susceptible to prosecution, so much can be done by voluntary effort. If we have the will, I am sure the way can be found.
I turn to the latter part of the speech of the hon. Member for Stechford. I believe that it is the task of Parliament and not of the courts today to determine with clarity what criminal offences shall be. In the 1959 Act we said in Section 2(4):
A person publishing an article shall not be proceeded against for an offence at common law consisting of the publication of any matter contained or embodied in the article where it is of the essence of the offence that the matter is obscene.
The whole House took that to mean that if there were, in fact, publication of an article or book proceedings could be taken, but Section 4 entitled the publisher to a defence that it was "for the public good". I take the view—contrary, I am sorry to say, to that of my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Sir C. Black)—that it is perfectly right to have a defence in which experts may give evidence that the publication was for the public good.
I do not share the view that that can be needled away in some way in the courts. I want it to be sustained. In 1961 a case began in which the House of Lords, in its wisdom, made it clear that


if it were a prosecution under the Obscene Publications Act one was entitled to the defence, but if it were a prosecution for conspiracy to corrupt public morals then it did not consist of publication because the conspiracy consisted of the agreement to publish and not of the publication. That is the ratio decidendi of the Shaw case on this point.
If today one is advising to prosecute material of any kind, whether literature, photography or anything in print or parts of a book, one would lay, and could perfectly well lay, a conspiracy to corrupt public morals, or not even a conspiracy; one might lay an offence to corrupt public morals.
In 1959 the Government were not in the position to cover these points because it was not generally believed then that the common law of England had such an offence as the corruption of public morals. It was only when the Shaw case went to the House of Lords that it was determined in the highest tribunal that there was still this vestigial power in the common law of England.
One of the most important points raised by the Bill is the power of Parliament to remedy that matter. When the matter reached the House of Lords their Lordships did not agree. I will read from a passage of Lord Reid in a dissenting judgment, on page 272, on the question whether there was an offence of corrupting public morals. He gave it as his opinion that there was no such known offence but he was in a minority and it was held that there was such an offence. He said:
Even if there is still a vestigial power of this kind"—
this offence of corrupting public morals—
it ought not, in my view, to be used unless there appears to be general agreement that the offence to which it is applied ought to be criminal if committed by an individual. Notoriously, these are wide differences of opinion today as to how far the law ought to punish immoral acts which are not done in the face of the public. Some think that the law already goes too far, some that it does not go far enough. Parliament is the proper place, and I am firmly of the opinion the only proper place, to settle that. When there is sufficient support from public opinion, Parliament does not hesitate to intervene. Where Parliament fears to tread it is not for the courts to rush in.
I do not propose to trespass upon the divergencies of opinion on that issue, but the Bill must make it quite clear what

Parliament means by this Act. Do we mean to permit prosecution to continue in respect of books, not as an obscene libel; do we propose to leave an open doorway to enable people to prosecute in another way? My view is that we should shut if firmly and should say plainly which is the method which shall be used for all literature and for all photography. We should decide that issue. If my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon can persuade the House that what was done in 1959 ought to be revoked, well and good, but I do not share that view.
It is not possible to ask for an assurance that no one will implement the conspiracy method. That is what the hon. Member for Stechford asked. It is not for the Solicitor-General to give such an assurance. It is a matter in the province of the courts. It is open to any chief constable at any time when he has seized literature to send it to someone for prosecution, to take advice if he wants and to proceed in accordance with the law of this country. If he wishes to proceed for an offence of currupting public morals, he is entitled so to do unless Parliament says that he cannot do it. Therefore, it is plain that if Parliament wants to ensure that in future literature is dealt with by the process of the Obscene Publications Act, 1959, as amended, it will be our task in Committee so to ensure.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: The hon. Member speaks with great knowledge of the subject, but I did not ask the Solicitor-General to give an assurance on this point. I asked that there should be an Amendment so that if there were conspiracy proceedings all the safeguards of the 1959 Act should apply. We could proceed in this way or in another way, but I am entirely with the hon. Member in wanting the matter dealt with according to the letter of the law. I asked for an assurance from the Solicitor-General that it is not the Government's intention in Committee to give any countenance to the view of the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Sir C. Black) that Section 4 of the 1959 Act should be swept away. If that suggestion were accepted, all that the hon. Member is talking about would be irrelevant.

Mr. Rees-Davies: It will not assist to have an assurance that the Government


will not change Section 4. My hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon could exert pressure on the chief constable of his county not to use that Act but to prosecute by another method, and I have no doubt that he would feel justified as a Member in trying to persuade him so to do. That is equally applicable across the whole field.
Suppose that one issued an indictment in respect of a particular set of premises and took all the negatives found there, certain instruments which were found there and certain material found there. One could say, "I shall not indict under the Obscene Publications Act. I will lay a charge of corrupting public morals". We must be careful that we do not perpetuate this anachronistic system of laying unnecessary conspiracy charges, which have grown far too popular—and the reason they have grown popular is our failure to give sufficient power to the police to get on with the job in accordance with what is laid down in the Statute. If we ensure that the Statutes are properly laid and give them sufficient powers, the police will use them.
The principal point arising in this Act was the decision of the incorruptible police constable, the Clayton decision. They laid a conspiracy charge and secured a conviction. It was held that police constables were incorruptible and were not depraved, and therefore there was an acquittal on that matter, but as an alternative a charge of conspiracy was laid, and under the conspiracy count it was held that as there was an agreement by the suppliers, the accused, to supply the public generally, then the public generally would be depraved and corrupted and therefore the accused was convicted.
The position is in a mess, and it is a good thing that we have an opportunity to clear up the points which have arisen since 1959. We cannot lay any criticism at the door of the Home Office, their advisers or the Minister at the time; when they passed the Bill they did it validly, after careful consideration. It is owing to the clarification of the common law of England and the vestigial powers remaining that we have to correct these matters.
I venture to finish on a partisan note. We on this side of the House are determined

to suppress purulent pornography over its whole wide scale and not to be drawn away into a little dilettantism at the expense of what we regard as a matter of great importance to the country. We are deeply indebted to my hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary of State for moving the Second Reading of the Bill and my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General for being here tonight to give us his views on the matter.

7.59 p.m.

Mr. Leo Abse: In the Library of the House of Commons we have a slight collection of erotica. It is a poor collection. It is maintained in a semi-secret cupboard and the courteous Librarian will always give an hon. Member the key if he particularly requires it. I assume that it is in these surroundings so as to make certain that those who are offended by such literature, such as the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Sir C. Black), will not feel wounded that it exists here in our Mother of Parliaments.
If we examine the collection we find that it includes, as one would expect, material such as the works of Havelock Ellis, Kinsey's "Sexual Behaviour," Lewisohn's "History of Sexual Customs," and also, what one would expect to find, "Lolita," "The Tropic of Cancer" and "Kama Sutra." We belong to a group of the vocationally immune, I do not doubt, and there is no danger.
One finds some strange things in this little collection and I cannot understand why, for example, side by side with "The Men in My Life" by Martha Watts we find "Members of the House of Commons, 1754–1790"—but nothing I have seen in the recent reviews of this work has led me to believe that there are any fascinating biographical details of the hon. Members of the House of Commons of the 18th century.
It is a slight collection and it needs must be because erotica has a long history. All pornography has, from the first "Love Song of Sumaria" 4,000 years ago and that written in Ezekiel, with which I am more familiar, to the present time. Always there have been works of this kind. It has been going on literally for thousands of years and it is no good blaming foreigners for this kind of work. We have our own. Indeed, one of the finest of the earliest books published in


the English language is a volume known as "The Exeter Book," which is replete with double-entendre riddles and is one of our oldest pieces of literature.
I am pleased to claim—as I do not doubt my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. M. Foot) and the sponsor of the original Bill will be pleased to claim—that we have had some very remarkable men coming from Monmouthshire, who made a contribution to English pornography. In the 12th century we had Geoffrey of Monmouth, who gave wondrous tales of the Arthurian Knights, but neither King Arthur nor the Knights were the little Lord Fauntleroys of later idylls.
Then we had the beginning of the importation into this country after the 14th century of a great deal of pornography. This was at a time when Boccacio was having to defend himself, in Italy no doubt, because he ended his writings by saying:
Being freer maybe than liketh your squeamish hypocritical prudes, who weigh words rather than deeds and study more to appear than to be good.
Since we have been talking a great deal about tradition in this country, it is worth remembering that Chaucer did not have to make any apologies. His frank scotological and sexual lines were written in a way that clearly shows that his England tolerated unashamedly an outspokenness even beyond that of Boccacio.
If one looks into the history of censorship—and one must do this when considering legislation of this kind—we know that in those terrible Elizabethan days—those days of great decadence when England was weak and futile—a monopoly was given the Stationers Company on condition that those printers did not print seditious and heretical works; rhymes and treatises of that kind had not to be published. When the scholars complained in those days that every light bit of smut got its licence without delay while serious books were held up for prolonged scrutiny, the licensers in those Elizabethan days reasonably replied that erotic writings harmed no one; that it was just the serious and learned works which might shake a man's faith in his government or the State church.
It was fortunate in those times that such a view was taken, otherwise much

of the works of Shakespeare would never be available to us. We would not have had works like "Venus and Adonis", and much else of Shakespeare would otherwise have not been inherited by us.
When I hear people saying now that our pornography is cheap and can be bought by ordinary workers—that it can be bought by the public in the form of paper backs—I think back to the Elizabethan days when, as anyone who has studied the history of erotica well knows, pornography was hawked around the streets on greyish sheets of paper in blurry type as freely as newspapers are sold today, replete with bawdy tales of harlotry and cuckoldry.
What nonsense to suggest that suddenly England is in danger of being flooded with cheap pornography. England has survived imported pornography before. It was in the 16th century that Paris began to send us the dreadful things about which the hon. Member for Wimbledon complains and which he described. It was at that time that we had the beginning of the worst of imported pornography. We had a translation under the title "One Hundred Merry and Delightsome Stories" which were described as suitable for all "goodly company" and it remains a standard work of erotica throughout the world. Of course, Margaret, Queen of Navarre's "Love Stories" were soon to follow, being available in this country for hundreds of years.
Not only did we have this importation but Britain has certainly developed a great deal more erotica. The nation survived the Restoration pornography—the ostentatious sexuality drawn in leering style which many think less attractive than the frank and bold, almost innocent obscenities of the Elizabethan age. Indeed some people think that this was the reaction to puritanism, the defiance of the Puritan sect.
Since we need to be informed historically when debating a Bill of this kind, it is well to remember that it was not repressive laws which modified public taste and turned them from the worst vulgarities of the Restoration period. It was not legislation. It was a process which began after 1695 when the Licensing Act was allowed to die. That was the time when the nation turned away from the Restoration rubbish.
It is well for us to turn back history and recall this quotation of what Macaulay said happened at the time. Speaking at a time when literature was becoming emancipated, in 1695, as a result of the Act being allowed to lapse, he said:
From the day on which the emancipation of our literature was accomplished, the purification of our literature began. That purification was effected, not by the intervention of senates or magistrates, but by the opinion of the great body of educated Englishmen, before whom good and evil were set, and who were left free to make their choice … the restraint imposed on writers by the general feeling of readers has been constantly becoming more and more strict. At length even that class of works in which it was formerly thought that a voluptuous imagination was privileged to disport itself … have become more decorous than the sermons of the seventeenth century.
That is what happened. Licensed salacity was superseded by free prudery. That is the historical fact and it was a more confident England that scoffed at the first attempt made to suggest obscenity might be a violation of the English common law when a printer named Reid was brought before the court for publishing "The Fifteen Plagues of a Maidenhead".
Sir John Holt, Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench, was one of the great masters of England's common law at the beginning of the 18th century. He ruled that much as he disliked both the tone and the content of the book, there was nothing illegal in it. Obscenity, he ruled, if punishable at all, was punishable only by ecclesiastical courts as a spiritual offence and nothing in law, common or statute, warranted an indictment against even the filthiest books, which the Lord Chief Justice of that day conceded the book was. So Mr. Reid, the printer, disappeared from history, and England survived.
If we begin to examine historically when the breaches were made and when obscenity became punishable, we find that the move away from this more permissive attitude occurred only when authority, the Establishment, felt itself threatened. The first of all English convictions for obscenity was that of Edmund Curll, who on at least two occasions previously had been in trouble because he antagonised the peers of England. He infringed their massive privileges. He had

printed an edition of the proceedings of the House in the treason trial of the Earl of Winton, and ended up reprimanded on his knees at the Bar of the House of Lords. Later, he was in trouble with them because he had printed without their permission some of their last wills and testaments. So authority was "gunning" for him, and eventually it got him, because he printed a book called "Venus in the Cloister, or the Nun in a Smock." That is how he got into trouble.
But England at that time had some sense. When he was ordered to stand for one hour in the pillory a few hundred yards up the road from here, a large public gathering took place. Doubtless they suspected the motivation of the prosecution, just as I suspect the motivation of this Bill. The people gathered, not to revile the man or to throw things at him, but to serenade him and comfort him. The public then—as now, in my view—had more wit than prissy, bossy, censors.
Indeed, there is a long link between the reactionaries and reactionary legislation aimed at suppressing pornography, and reaction itself. The nineteenth century Society for the Suppression of Vice, which did so much campaigning and stirred up so much legislation to abolish brothels and eliminate obscenity, claimed as one of its earliest triumphs—and I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale knows this—the successful prosecution of Carlisle, who was Thomas Paine's publisher of the "Age of Reason." Indeed—and in my view, it is significant—the Victorians who resisted emancipation, vaccination, education and mechanical progress were among the most active in demanding punitive laws against obscenity.
The hon. Member for Wimbledon is in a long line of tradition with these people, because history shows that, with but a few exceptions, those who stirred up anti-obscenity legislation in the nineteenth century were exactly the same people who held that anaesthetics in childbirth were sinful, because women should bring forth children in sorrow, who maintained that God intended that children of 8 or 10 should work in mills, and organised a Free Enterprise Society to oppose the creation of a Board of Health. With all this historical background we are entitled to ask ourselves what was


the result of this Victorian anti-obscenity zeal and legislation. It was simply that the golden age of prudery was, as we all know, the golden age of pornography. That is what happened. English erotica flowered in the Victorian period. As St. John Stevas, a Conservative candidate, has said in his book "Obscenity and the Law," this was
… the great period for pornography of every kind, from high-priced erotical material designed for bibliophiles to the cheap trash intended for the general public.
He is right. It was in the Victorian era that pornographic magazines multiplied and grew.
"Fanny Hill" had a rebirth underground, with literally scores of editions. They were not even satisfied with it as it was, but added episodes not thought of by the author. Paris was still at work, but England did not collapse. Balzac and Casanova were imported on a wide and extensive scale. The Society for the Suppression of Vice certainly, by stimulating prosecutions, reduced the number of Holywell Street pornographic shops from 57 to 20, but everyone knew that the remaining 20 did more business than had the previous 57.
Why, then, in the face of the history of pornography and the futility of attempting to suppress it by legislation, do we, at this curious moment, seek yet tighter control? Why has it come about at this moment? Is the real motivation the elimination of lacuna in the present law? Is there a widespread demand for the suppression of pornography? We know that there are always the vociferous minority groups, but the only fact we seem to have learned this afternoon is that there is a widespread demand for pornography—we are told of a million copies and of 300,000 copies being seized. As I understand it, there is a widespread demand, but not a widespread demand for suppressing pornography.
Why is it that we suddenly get a puritanical reaction of this character? Why do the Government suddenly wish to clothe themselves in whiter-than-white? Is this an attempt to blot out the opprobrium attributed to them by the Profumo and Keeler scandal? Is that the reaction that has led to this stupid prosecution of "Fanny Hill", begun in such an absurd manner in the wrong place at the wrong time? Are

the Government, after last year's squalor and deceits and lies, seeking to parade now as a Government strongly concerned to protect the nation from any of the aberrations of these unhappy, wretched voyeurs? I find this puritanical reaction mere sordid, more replete with humbug, than the miserable events that I think have prompted this ostentatious display of restrictive morality.
All that repressive obscenity legislation achieves is, as all history proves, the emasculation of literature and the driving of pornography underground, where it is miserably served by the least of writing talent. Prohibition inevitably gives such wretched pornography an attraction that it would not earn on its merits, and makes purveyors set high prices on their wares to compensate for the inevitable and growing risks that legislation of this kind would introduce.
Do we not know that ever since the Garden of Eden, forbidden fruit tastes sweeter? I was once, surprising though it may be to the House, chairman of the watch committee in the capital of Wales, with its great Nonconformist tradition. I found in the short time I held the office—it was just before I came to the House—that I had to deal with this dreadful problem of which we have heard from hon. Members with regard to films. We had to view these films, when they were borderline cases, to decide what certificate we would give. When I realised that those who were to exhibit a film were desperately anxious that I should give it an X certificate, I never gave it one—I always gave it, if I could, a U certificate. Sometimes I had to concede to my committee to give it an A certificate, because no one wanted to see it then. It is only when one forbids things like that that they become attractive. This Fill is totally the wrong way to go about the business.
We have been making sly innuendoes this evening about Epsom and where the Home Secretary may or may not be. It is perhaps typical of the hypocritical atmosphere in which the Bill is enveloped that it comes before the House at a time when a large proportion of hon. Members are away indulging in what my chapel-going constituents would say was a veritable orgy at Ascot. [HON. MEMBERS: "Epsom."] I do not ask pardon for my lack of familiarity with the


venue. Instead of repressively and punitively seeking out sin, as this Bill does, would it not be more constructive, to ask why people are voyeurs? Why do they want to buy this wretched stuff? Why are they prepared to pay for such depressing material and create this huge market for this vapid pornography?
As sociologists in America have emphasised, they are usually people who are isolated and lost. They seek their sex not within the personal relationship of matrimonial life but vicariously in the banal rubbish about which we are speaking. They have not reached their predicament by accident. Men and women need to be brought up in an atmosphere of love and to be able to experience and to give and receive love. The fusion of the tender and lustful impulses of a man is more likely to come about when as a child he is reared in a home where respect, regard and passion flows from one parent to another.
The sexually immature, like those who buy this trash or those who, like Keeler, become prostitutes, have so often not come out of such homes. It would be more helpful and constructive if we mobilised our social resources and spent our time asking how we could use them to see that these children born into unhappy homes, who as a result have faulty attitudes in their personal relationships, have succour and care.
I think that it would be more valuable to examine the real roots of pornography, which are not in the people who purvey for profit but lie in people who are brought up with the loss of home affection. They lie in these lost souls who seek sexual satisfaction while they wander round the pornographic stores in Soho and elsewhere. Just as human beings in private life, if excessively sexually repressed, have anxiety or obsessional neurosis, so I believe that if the State indulges, as the Victorian State indulged, in repressive legislation of this kind, a reaction will be provoked that it seeks to avoid.
A little less of this punitive air in the House of Commons would be all the better for us. A little less of that attitude and a little more humanity and we may create a Britain where people ultimately would be bored at the idea of buying this pornography and would turn

away from it because they realised how puerile and trashy it was.

8.24 p.m.

Mr. Ian Gilmour: In a most valuable historical exercise the hon. Member for Pontypool (Mr. Abse) has carefully and almost lovingly traced the British pornographic tradition. As he has said, it is plain that it has always been with us, though I think that his thesis that a reactionary attitude towards pornography goes with a reactionary attitude towards politics could not be sustained if he looked at the seventeenth century.
The hon. Member added to my bewilderment this evening. My hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary introduced the Bill in a most lucid and able speech, but he did not answer the most important question, which is why the Bill has been introduced. I can hardly imagine that the pigeonholes in the Home Office are anything but choc-a-bloc with Bills anxious to come out and be made Acts. That all those have been neglected and this Bill has been produced shows an extraordinarily defective sense of priorities.
Anybody would gather from the introduction of the Bill that pornography was really a vastly important subject and that it was a major social evil. We have only to look around us for a moment to see that it is not. There are a great many other things which are far more important. One obvious thing is the gang warfare between Mods and Rockers at seaside resorts. It would surely be far better for the Mods and Rockers and for the community at large if instead of breaking up Clacton and places like that they all stayed at home and read a little light pornography.
It seems to me that an extraordinary lack of proportion is being shown. The crusaders against pornography always make the same mistake. They all exaggerate its effect on the people who read it. As the hon. Member for Pontypool and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins) have said, there is no evidence that the reading of pornography leads people to indulge in colourful orgies. They do nothing of the sort. Pornography is a solitary vice. It is singularly unimportant, and the people who try to stamp


it out seem to be the people who pay much the most attention to it.
The hon. Member for Pontypool went into the English tradition. There is also an American tradition. There was a famous man, J. Frank Chase, secretary of the Boston Watch and Ward Society for 20 years. He was a famous scourge of pornography until he came up against the redoubtable H. L. Mencken. Chase for 20 years was able to prohibit the publication of anything that he did not like because he was more or less able to choose his own judge, but the interesting thing about him was that while he was obsessed with pornography he liked it very much indeed. He had a most excellent pornographic library of his own, and he once wrote a most obscene ode to Boston night clubs. As I have said, Chase was obsessed with pornography because he liked it so much. I do not suggest that this is the case with the Home Office, but the Home Office is tremendously exaggerating the importance of pornography.
It may be objected that while pornography does not have much effect on the people who read it, nevertheless it offends people that it should exist, and that their susceptibilities should not be bruised in this way. There is something in this, but when the argument is put forward, I remember the comment by Norman Douglas when there were a lot of complaints by moralists at the goings on at the Feast of the Madonna di Pollino. He said that he could well believe that these goings on had taken place, but why were the moralists there? This is the point. It is quite easy to avoid pornography if one wants to. It is quite unnecessary to come into contact with obscenity if one objects to it. I cannot accept the idea that people's moral susceptibilities must be cosseted in this way as a compelling argument.
My first reservation about the Bill, therefore, is that it has been produced at all. My second reservation is that it seems exceedingly one-sided. If we are to close all these loopholes, it is important that they should be closed from all angles. When Mencken sold his copy of the American Mercury to Mr. Chase on Boston Common and Chase handed him a 50 cent piece, Mencken bit it to see whether it was genuine. We should bite this Bill rather carefully before it is

finished with because there is a great deal which needs to be done to it.
It seems to me that the loophole in the 1959 Act which was revealed in the "Fanny Hill" case, and through which the Director of Public Prosecutions darted, shot ld be closed just as much as any other loophole. Even more important, we should take note of what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) about the invention of the offence of conspiracy to corrupt public morals. It is essential that this point should be dealt with and that that offence should be disinvented by the Bill, because it really does disfigure British law today.
I hope, therefore, that the Bill will be altered fairly radically before it is passed into law.

8.30 p.m.

Mr. Michael Foot: Everyone will agree that, at least up to this point, this has been a fascinating debate. Speaking for myself and, I think, for many others, I regard the speech delivered by my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypool (Mr. Abse) as one of the finest speeches I have ever heard in the House. It was a magnificent declaration of the truest tradition of this country, and I felt privileged to be present to hear it.
Like others, including the hon. Member for Norfolk, Central (Mr. Ian Gilmour), who has just spoken, I have been wondering about the origin of the Bill and why we have been presented with it at all. Perhaps, when the Government decided that they would not have a General Election in the summer, they had to look round for a Bill which could be brought forward. That would be as good a case for the Bill as we have had so far, but I think that we must see whether there are other reasons.
When I read in the newspapers that the Home secretary was proposing to introduce a Bill to deal with obscenity and censorship, I was extremely alarmed. I thought that he was not the kind of person we could safely have in charge of such a matter. It was rather as though one read that the compilation of the Bill of Rights was to be entrusted to Judge Jeffreys. I did not think that he was the right person to do it.

Sir Kenneth Pickthorn: The hon. Gentleman might remember that we owe to Judge Jeffreys as much as to any single man—and, with due respect, to the Star Chamber, to which we owe even more—the law of evidence, which is the most important of all the foundations of our liberty.

Mr. Foot: I apologise if I have done any injustice to Judge Jeffreys. For a moment, I thought that the hon. Gentleman was leaping to the defence of the Home Secretary, but I see that he is much more discriminating.
The fact is that the Home Secretary, in the view of many of us, is not the kind of person whom we can see introducing legislation on this matter without examining it with extreme care. As has been pointed out already by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Derby, North (Mr. MacDermot), when one reads the Bill one's suspicions are reinforced because the Explanatory Memorandum does not explain what the Bill is about. There is nothing novel in that, judging from the Explanatory Memoranda I have seen in the past, but this Explanatory Memorandum is deceptive.
It seems that in this respect the Home Office has learned a few tricks from the pornographers. What some pornographers do is to put innocent material in a salacious cover, and what others do is to put salacious material in an innocent cover. What the Home Office has done in the Bill is to try to conceal the more serious measures that it proposes for dealing with the law of obscenity beneath a mild and misleading Explanatory Memorandum. But what it has also done, as has been pointed out by many speakers, including the hon. Member for Norfolk, Central, is to be extremely one-sided in its approach.
The hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) said that what we were meeting here tonight to do was to produce more effective measures to deal with pornography. He is entitled to engage in that pursuit is he wishes. But the Joint Under-Secretary of State, who introduced the Bill, said something rather different. His explanation of the origin of the Bill was that the Home Office had set out to review the operation of the Measure introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins) and that this was a Bill setting

out to deal with the deficiencies which had arisen since my hon. Friend's Bill was passed.
Therefore, the hon. Gentleman was not saying that he was coming before the House merely to deal with the police provisions of the Act. He was saying that the whole Act had been reviewed by the Home Office, which makes the situation considerably more serious, because if this is the Home Office's verdict on the operation of the Act we have to review the matter in a much more extensive manner.
If the Home Office reviewed the whole Measure, there are a number of amendments which many of us, including, I should have thought, the Solicitor-General, are surprised to note are not in the Bill. Like many others, I have looked up what happened when the 1959 Obscene Publications Bill was introduced. I was not in the House at the time. During one of the important debates on the Bill, when the House was discussing the Report of the Select Committee, the present Solicitor-General, who was then a back bencher, made a contribution to the debate and discussed one of the questions which had been frequently raised during the proceedings, namely, who should be responsible for initiating prosecutions under the Act. I will not read all the speech which the Solicitor-General delivered. I dare say that he has read it again and I hope that he has been fortified by it. I only wish that he had read it before the Bill was drafted by the Home Office. Perhaps he will tell us when he read his speech last.
On 16th December, 1958, the Solicitor-General made a most powerful case for suggesting, not merely that all prosecutions under the Act should be brought by the Director of Public Prosecutions, but that the Attorney-General's office should always be involved in such prosecutions. The right hon. and learned Gentleman in that debate said that if there were any difficulties about staff they could be fairly simply remedied and that more staff could be taken on to ensure that his office could deal with the matter satisfactorily.
I do not ask the Solicitor-General to answer my speech when he speaks; I ask him to answer his own. Perhaps


he will tell us why he has not insisted with the Home Office that an Amendment should be introduced in this Bill incorporating the proposal which he presented so eloquently in December, 1958.

The Solicitor-General (Sir Peter Rawlinson): If I may quote the hon. Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins), we all change.

Mr. Foot: That tempts me to read the Solicitor-General's speech on that occasion. I do not know whether I should do so. I am sorry to hear that he has changed. Perhaps he will tell us why he has changed, because he came back to this matter several times during his speech. I will read a bit of it, because the right hon. and learned Gentleman has provoked me. He said:
This is a matter in which the Attorney-General should give a lead to prosecution. I appreciate the incredible amount of labour which is laid upon the back of an Attorney-General.
Perhaps he has changed his mind about that. Maybe he has found the job of a Law Officer a light one. He went on to say:
He has the task of advising, as principal Law Officer of the Crown, of explaining in this House, and of appearing for the Crown. It is a tremendous burden, but, nevertheless, it has to be undertaken. The Report says that in his memorandum to the Select Committee my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General said:
'It is a fundamental principle of English criminal law that proceedings may be instituted by private individuals.'
I would certainly agree with that to a limited extent. But this is not the kind of proceeding in criminal law which should be brought by private individuals.
I shall be glad if the right hon. and learned Gentleman will say whether he disagrees with that view. He concluded by saying:
The Attorney-General is assisted by one qualified secretary and two qualified assistant secretaries. It seems precious little assistance to enable him to conduct the vast business that he has, and, therefore, it is the duty of Parliament to provide him with the staff which will enable my right hon. and learned Friend to bear the responsibilities we lay upon him, and to take over these other matters which are of great public concern and which should be responsibly accepted by him."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th December, 1958; Vol. 597, c. 1025–26.]
I should like to know the full reasons why the Solicitor-General has not

succeeded with the Home Office in getting his Amendment into the Bill.
Several proposals were put forward by the hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet, who wanted Amendments dealing with a whole range of other matters. I am not sure whether each of them was to be incorporated in today's Bill. The hon. Member said that he wanted measures for dealing with the filthy postcard business. I should like to know from the Solicitor-General whether the activities described by his hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet in Blackpool are legal.
It may be that I should explain what the hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet said. He said that in Blackpool some of the postcards were brought before a kind of board, or committee, to decide which of them were proper, which of them should be proceeded against and which should not, so that the producers of the postcards would know whether they were safe. That was the procedure described by the hon. Member.
Section 3 of the 1959 Act states, however, that
Any articles seized under subsection (1) of this section shall be brought before a justice of the peace acting for the same petty sessions area as the justice who issued the warrant".
I am not a lawyer, but it seems to me that what goes on in Blackpool is illegal under the Act, because people are not entitled to seize filthy postcards and make up their minds whether they will prosecute and to give indications concerning them to the producers of these postcards. Those who take the material must decide whether to prosecute.
That is the purpose for which they are given the warrant. It is not just for the purpose of snooping around and showing them to the members of the watch committee and deciding which ones they will allow to go ahead and which they will not, particularly when we are told by the hon. Member for Isle of Thanet—and I am sorry that he is not present—that there are different standards in Folkestone and Margate, that the situation is difficult for the people who produce the cards and a lot of people want to buy them. These people are as much entitled as anybody else to know what they are able to do under the law. The law should be as certain for them as it is for anybody else.
In my opinion, those who produce these postcards are, at least, engaged in an activity which is less reprehensible than many other activities which are regarded as quite sedate and proper. They are, however, entitled to have the law made clear for them. Therefore, I want to know whether the proceedings at Blackpool which the hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet has described are legal. It might well be that they are a conspiracy. The hon. Member said that it is a friendly conspiracy, but who is he to judge? He is not administering the law. Under the existing law, I do not think that that would operate.
The hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet went on to say that he wanted to extend this kind of system to the book trade as a whole. He wanted a kind of books council which would decide which books were to be allowed to go free and which were not. He wanted a kind of book censorship board. I do not know whether he proposes to try to introduce an Amendment to the Bill to secure what he wants.
I must warn the hon. Member that if he goes ahead and introduces that kind of Amendment, there will be trouble in the Government, because the proposal for a book censorship board was made during the discussions of the Select Committee on my hon. Friend's Bill. At that time, the Foreign Secretary was Secretary of State for the Home Department. He said that if any proposal were made to introduce a book board censorship he would violently rebel against it. If the right hon. Gentleman says that he will rebel violently against something we had better look out and be careful. What tender ground we are trespassing on if that is to be the case! It is not my business to stir up trouble in the Government, but I warn them that if they persist with the proposal advocated so powerfully by the hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet, then at last the Foreign Secretary will rebel against them.
I shall not go into detail about the proposal put by my hon. Friend the Member for Stechford, who argued an overwhelming case for dealing with the loophole revealed by the "Fanny Hill" case—the denial to reputable publishers of the right to have their case tried by a jury. I am amazed that the Joint Under Secretary of State made no reference to

this matter. Surely the Home Office considered it. Perhaps we shall be told whether it did so and whether it rejected this proposal. Is that what happened?
In any case, as the hon. Gentleman knows quite well, this affair has figured prominently in public discussion of the Bill. It was not treating the House properly not to have told us the feeling of the Government on this matter, which would make, perhaps, a big difference to our attitude towards this whole Measure. I hope that the Solicitor-General will not only discuss the merits of the proposal put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Stechford, and the requests that he should insist, by one means or another, that any person prosecuted under the Bill shall have a trial by jury if he wishes. I hope that he will also tell us why it was that the Government, when they considered this matter originally—as they presumably did—decided to keep the proposal out of the Bill.
My hon. Friend put an overwhelming case. Of course, publishers will not flippantly make their choice to be tried by jury, with the possible penalty of imprisonment. But what is wrong in giving them a right to a fair trial? This is not only a matter of what degree of pornography people think should be permissible. It is a question of common justice to publishers who are engaged in a perfectly reputable trade. Indeed, many of us believe that they are engaged in a trade absolutely essential to the maintenance of all the traditions of this country, which we hear so much about.
They are entitled to be judged by their peers, by their fellow citizens. They are entitled to protection from the shameful indignity inflicted on the publisher in the "Fanny Hill" case. It is all very well for the hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet to say that we should not worry about that case, but we must consider the effect on the morale of the publishing trade and on printers. When a prosecution against a book like "Fanny Hill" succeeds, the numbers of other books suppressed on that account cannot be estimated. No one knows.
Anyone who reads the evidence to the Select Committee will see how many publishers indicated this following the prosecutions of 1954. Now, as a result of the astonishing verdict in the "Fanny Hill" case, many very highly reputable


publishers are put back in the invidious position of not knowing what the law is. When hon. Members opposite say that this is a very simple matter, and the hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet talks as though the "Fanny Hill" case does not matter, they should remember that it is a question of considerable importance to the people who are engaged in producing books.
Those who are so dogmatic about this remarkable state of affairs which has arisen with the "Fanny Hill" case should remember that Mr. Robert Pitman, of the Sunday Express, who had previously set himself up as the Grand Inquisitor and chief censor and substitute hon. Member for Wimbledon all in one, and who has been pillorying one book after another, went into the witness box in the "Fanny Hill" case to say that it was a perfectly reputable book.
I do not know what are the views of the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Sir C. Black) about that book.

Sir C. Black: I have not read the book.

Mr. Foot: I thought that that was so, seeing that the hon. Member condemned it so viciously.

Sir C. Black: The hon. Gentleman cannot have been listening to my speech. I made no reference to that book whatsoever.

Mr. Foot: If I have misinterpreted what the hon. Gentleman said, I apologise. I do not think that I have. I gather that the present situation is that he has not yet made up his mind about "Fanny Hill".

Sir C. Black: I have not yet read the book.

Mr. Foot: The hon. Member has not made up his mind about it yet. He should do so before joining with his hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet in saying that it is a matter of no importance.

Sir C. Black: I did not.

Mr. Foot: I do not say that the hon Member had, but in his speech he showed not the slightest interest in protecting any publisher. Indeed, his sole interest in making his speech was to try to assist in stiffening all the penalties.
As the "Fanny Hill" case has been the chief case which has arisen, it has

been a legitimate deduction on my part to say that the hon. Member has not had any worries about the consequences of that case. What am saying about the "Fanny Hill" case is that a gross injustice was inflicted on a citizen who is engaged in an entirely honourable profession. It is the business of the House to try to prevent such injustices from occurring.
When we have such an example of such flagrant injustice, and the Government introduce a Bill precisely concerned with the matter, they should have applied their mind to the question even if the hon. Member for Wimbledon is prepared to back the Bill without knowing what are its consequences in reference to the chief case of recent months.
I hope that the Solicitor-General will tell us in detail what is his view of that case. Does he think that it is just that a reputable publisher, engaged in producing a bock which many people regard as a perfectly legitimate production, including those most suspicious about pornography, should be summarily condemned by a magistrate's court without any right of appeal? If he says that that is a proper process, he is twisting the purposes of my hon. Friend's original Act.
One of the purposes of the 1959 Act was to try to insert into the law—not in its exact form, but reproduced in legislative terms—the common sense and common decency of what Mr. Justice Stable said prior to the introduction of that Act. His verdict in the case of, I think, "The Philanderer", altered the situation a great deal and was incorporated in all the documents which preceded my hen. Friend's Act. The then Home Secretary, now the Foreign Secretary, also quoted it with approval, although I do not say that he approved every word. One cannot co-ordinate the verdict of that judge, which we were trying to incorporate in the 1959 Measure, with the result of the "Fanny Hill" case. Therefore, the right hon. and learned Gentleman ought to answer that.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypool said, the whole of this subject is hopelessly out of proportion. Nobody knows exactly what corrupts and depraves. The hon. Member for Wimbledon is certain about it, but nobody


else knows for certain. Nobody knows whether there is any connection between dirty books and juvenile delinquency. No such proposition has ever been remotely proved, but the hon. Member for Wimbledon is prepared to say that we should legislate fiercely and ferociously without knowing the connection between these matters.
I do not want to take any censorious measures about other media, but I suspect that some of the things printed in the Sunday newspapers are likely to corrupt and deprave much more than anything printed in books is likely to do. I do not want the newspapers to be suppressed on that account. I want the matter to be dealt with by public opinion. A much more powerful argument could be made for saying that some of the things printed in the Sunday Press corrupt and deprave than for saying that that happens by what is printed in these books. It must be remembered, too, that the Sunday newspapers are available to many more people than are the books, but the brave Government are not to take any measures against the newspapers on the ground of obscenity, because if they did they would be in trouble with their friends.
Let us consider next what one sees on television. I do not want to suppress anything on television. I believe that the problem should be solved by the free market play of ideas, and I have enough confidence in the public to think that truth and decency will win. I do not want any censorship, anywhere, but if it is said that the young are somehow being corrupted, I maintain that it is much more likely to be corrupted by some of the things which we see on television than by what is written in these books.
The young are very often much more corrupted by the kind of rubbish that is printed in some of our history books than by what they read in some of the literature which has been under discussion today, but we in this House do not discuss the contents of the newspapers, we do not discuss the contents of television, and we do not discuss the contents of the history books. I think that in most cases it would be most inadvisable to do so, but it is lopsided for us to spend so many hours, and indeed, days and years, introducing legislation to deal with obscene

books on the ground, apparently, that we must do it to protect the youth of the country. We never consider any measures to influence other activities and other media, which, I should have thought, had a much more powerful influence on the minds of young people than these so-called pornographic books.
The House of Commons spent three or four years examining in every detail the Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Stechford. Two Select Committees considered it, and now, within a few years of the 1959 Act being passed, the Government say that the matter must be dealt with afresh. This is an astonishing state of affairs. Why should the Government be so fascinated with obscenity? It is all because of the dirtiest word in the dictionary, the forbidden three-lettered word "sex". That is the reason for it. It is because so many people have become absurdly obsessed with that idea that, somehow, so-called sexual sins are worse than any others.
I hope that the youth of the country will read what was said yesterday by Groucho Marx. He paid this country a great compliment. He said "There was no sham about sex; each side knows that it has it, and is kinda proud of it." Groucho Marx is a much healthier influence than this Bill, and in this sense and in many others I am an impenitent Marxist. He made a healthier kind of contribution than the prurient stuff that we have had from the hon. Member for Wimbledon, not so ably assisted by his hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet.
There may be another reason for the introduction of the Bill. It may be that the Cabinet assembled together and, even before they heard the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypool (Mr. Abse), thought that they should do something, apart from issuing stamps, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of our greatest poet, who was also one of our greatest pornographers. It may be that the Cabinet met to discuss how this should be done. Unfortunately, it has lost the services of several of its most intellectual Members. The right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) was not there to warn it, nor was the right hon. Member for Enfield, West (Mr. Iain Macleod) nor the right hon. Member for Birmingham,


Handsworth (Sir E. Boyle), who used to be Minister of Education but who is now in the background. We might describe this Government as the Ministry of All The Buried Talents. They are not left in good fettle for dealing with these questions.
Eventually the Home Office came along with the proposal that we should celebrate the anniversary of Shakespeare by introducing this Measure. But even that ancestry cannot make me love it any more. It is a piddling little Measure. It should be treated with contempt. No doubt we shall have to go through the procedure of debating it in Committee and examining it in detail. We shall try to improve it, if we can. If there is nothing much else for the House of Commons to apply its mind to this summer we might as well deal with the Bill. We will try to make it a much better Bill than it is now—and that should not be difficult.
But I hope that the reception which the Bill has been given from hon. Members on both sides of the House will persuade the Home Office that it will not get away with it so easily in the future, and that it will cause the Home Office to apply its mind to some of the real social problems described by my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypool instead of abusing the good nature of this House by bringing forward Measures of this character.

9.2 p.m.

Mr. John Cordle: I have also sat through the whole debate, and I have been interested and fascinated by it. At the same time, I have found it difficult to follow the arguments of hon. Members opposite and, indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, Central (Mr. Ian Gilmour). I find myself in a minority, with my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Sir C. Black)—and I am rather proud to be there.
I welcome the Bill. I believe that it will go a long way towards suppressing obscenity and pornography. I believe that a great sigh of relief will go up among all decent people—parents, school teachers and social workers—at the thought that, at last, something will be done to clean up bookstalls, even at so late an hour. In our effort to be fair to offenders and evil-doers we are

sometimes extremely unfair to law-abiding citizens. This explains the failure of the 1959 Act. It was carefully drawn up in an attempt to safeguard literary men from persecution and, at the same time, to protect the innocent from corruption
I feel sure that many decent citizens would like to see the law changed so that not only low-grade pornographic publications from the United States are banned, but new canons of criticism are employed in judging the merits and morals of professedly literary publications. In my view, "Lady Chatterley's Lover" should be dumped into the Channel for a start, along with many similar types of book. Perhaps "Lady Chatterley's" bishop might benefit from a similar ducking.
As parents and politicians we are worried and alarmed by the report issued by the British Medical Association showing a considerable increase in veneral diseases among teen-agers and young people. Since 1957, there has been an increase of 62 per cent. among boys and young men, and 75 per cent. among teen-age girls and those in their early twenties—the age group from 15 to 21. I believe that much of this sad story is due to filthy books and pornography.
Anything that we can do in this House to protect young people from corruption during their formative yet undeveloped years is surely the plain duty of Parliament. This problem of obscenity is worrying especially mothers throughout the country, and I feel pitifully sorry for lonely young women who are trying to bring up a family when their children are exposed to these dangerous and obscene publications.
One such mother complained to me recently of the astonishingly detailed and intimate particulars which her daughter had learned from such a publication. The effect of all this is anti-social and militates against the conscientious and painstaking work of the school teachers and social workers of our day.
I have had complaints also from the clergy and, in particular, from the Rev. Gordon Guiness, a much respected clergyman in my constituency, who has recently written in his parish magazine:
One of the problems we have to face is the degradation of morals in the nation.


Those who are acting so as to undermine Christian morality whether from motives of money, profit, Communism or personal moral perversion are now in command. They sit in Parliament. They control theatres and cinemas and they debase the television and the Press.
He goes on to say:
The B.B.C. is also engaged in the propaganda of disbelief, doubt and dirt. The first Governors of the B.B.C. dedicated their headquarters to God with the prayer 'all the things hostile to peace and purity be banished from this house.
The present controllers of programmes care more for the applause of men than the approval of God. As Christians, we must not only know what is going on, we must constantly exercise pressure to condemn evil and to praise good. We owe it to the coming generation at least.
We cannot allow the exploitation of our young people for the sake of gain and profit. Therefore, it seems to me that the Bill must make it exceedingly unprofitable and almost impossible, if it is to serve any purpose, for anyone to corrupt or debase the morals of our young people by means of obscene publications.
I am proud to say that one of the prominent wholesale booksellers and newsagents of Bournemouth, Messrs. Thunder and Clayden, have continually refused attractive offers to handle imported filth, and have informed me of numerous occasions when samples have been sent to them. Bournemouth should be thankful to them for this private censorship. I can only wish that other agents in London and other parts of the country had taken as patriotic a view of the matter.
There are three main sources of corruption—the American paper-back novels, the so-called Soho photographs, and the pin-up magazines. As my hon. Friend has told us today, nearly 1½ million obscene novels were seized by the police and Customs authorities and presumably very many more escaped the vigilance of the authorities. Quite possibly, 5 million copies got through the net. The theme of these novels is much the same as the pin-up papers, which come mainly from America—sex and violence, violence and sex, illustrated with sleazy pictures.
The Soho photographs, showing acts of sexual intercourse and perversion, are nauseating. Enormous profits are made out of the sale of these pornographic photographs and without doubt the same applies to the novels and pin-up publications.

I am very glad that my right hon. Friend has introduced the Bill. It is designed not only to plug holes which have been found in the existing law, but also to make it unprofitable and uncomfortable to deal in and handle and possess photographs and printed matter of the sort which we have been discussing tonight.
There is one further point which appears not to be covered by the Bill and I wish to ask the Minister whether a Clause could be included to cover the matter. When Mr. Kenneth Tynan was appointed literary manager of the new National Theatre, the New Statesman welcomed the appointment and praised Mr. Tynan for his part in making
kitchen sinks, lavatories, drugs, homosexuality and crime standard ingredients for success in the West End theatre.
May I ask: is such a man fit and suitable to hold such an influential and important position?
The influence of the B.B.C. and I.T.V. in matters of morals is beyond computation. Yet many a home is subject to suggestive, dirty and corrupting plays and talks which often do serious harm before the viewer has had time to realise what is happening. I hope that with the Bill we may succeed in dealing with this problem, but unless the so-called sex confessions and horrid and lurid articles on misconduct, uncleanness and crime are excluded from publication by the national Press, especially the Sunday newspapers, our work here will be only half done. Surely, in dealing with obscene publications, we must do a thorough job. I hope that some of my comments will be considered for inclusion in the Bill so that we can safeguard our children and our families.

9.12 p.m.

Mr. F. H. Hayman: I had not intended to intervene in the debate, but the speech by the hon. Member for Bournemouth, East and Christchurch (Mr. Cordle) compels me to do so. I feel that we cannot but regret extremely that the hon. Gentleman now represents Bournemouth, East and Christchurch instead of Mr. Nigel Nicolson, whom we in this House admired. I admired the fine speeches which he made here, although once he was an opponent of mine.
What has just been said by the hon. Member must make his Front Bench


colleagues wonder very much whether they were wise to introduce the Bill. I hope that at least they will be warned that in this House we ought not to be guided too much by individual opinions on what may be pornographic or indecent or anything else of that sort.

9.14 p.m.

The Solicitor-General (Sir Peter Rawlinson): The subject which we have been debating today has underlying it matters on which everyone in this House has deep and serious feeling. It is a problem, a grave and serious problem that we have been debating. The anxiety and concern referred to by my hon. Friends the Member for Wimbledon (Sir C. Black) and Bournemouth, East and Christchurch (Mr. Cordle) appear to be very widely shared by many people in this country today. I do not think the seriousness should be underestimated.
The hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Mr. Hayman) brought as it were a word of warning and the moderation of the middle road, as I understood his suggestion and contribution, to the considerations we should give to these matters. I do not know if he heard earlier some of the speeches which were made from the other side on this matter.

Mr. Hayman: I have heard many of the speeches.

The Solicitor-General: The hon. Member will appreciate that people feel very seriously about this grave problem. The hon. Member for Pontypool (Mr. Abse) in a remarkable speech, which degenerated into party political controversy, asked when reciting the history of pornography what was the reason for this Bill? The reason for this Bill is to strike at and to hit what I might call the Soho bookshop and the importers of prurient pornography. That is the responsibility, and the proper responsibility, of the Government of the day.
Following the Select Committee Report, Parliament tried in the Act of 1959 to strike a balance by providing effective machinery to punish and deter pornographers. I can say with confidence that it is clear from the concern expressed by some hon. Members opposite about this matter that they too would wish to see it stamped out. Parliament

in 1959 wanted to provide effective machinery to deal with pornographers, to be able to deal with the mass of pornography and yet not to convict or destroy in any case where the publication is justified as being for the public good. It is inevitable in such an exercise that those who emphasise, as some hon. Members have done today, the social need to punish and destroy are branded by some articulate gentleman as philistines and prudes, while those who emphasise the intellectual need to permit publication would be branded as libertines and corrupters, but the Act of 1959, which the present Bill seeks to strengthen, was born of compromise.
To follow what the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne said, no group has a monopoly of intellectual superiority or literary knowledge or cultivated taste. I think there is a reaction both ways to a sensible compromise. For people of moderate and sensible views on both sides of this House will appreciate that Parliament must and should lay a duty on the Government of the day to prevent, punish and destroy pornography. The 1959 Act, a3 has been said by many hon. Members in this debate, had the objects of providing, for the first time, a statutory definition of obscenity: secondly to provide a defence of liberty or artistic or other merit, and, thirdly, to strengthen the law against pornography. The last was a very important objective.
Since then loopholes have appeared. The hon. and learned Member for Derby, North (Mr. MacDermot) who spoke with such skill from the Front Bench opposite, referred to the case of Clayton, which is mentioned in the Explanatory Memorandum to the Bill. That was a case in which it was held that where a charge is preferred under the Act in regard to the publication of an article to a particular person the test which has to be applied is what the effect of the article in question is on that person. Was it such as to tend to deprave or corrupt him?
The hon. and learned Member seems to think that it was clear under the 1959 Act that that would be the decision of the Court. I would refer him to the "Lady Chatterley" case. There there was publication to a police officer. Since it


has been held that a police officer engaged in such work is incorruptible, and it is obvious that the corruptibles are usually unwilling to give evidence, the effect of the Clayton case was that it was impossible to charge an offence of publishing an obscene article in such circumstances. The Bill is designed to close that loophole. Certain hon. Members have spoken against any form of censorship and against any form of restriction upon the power of persons to publish pornography. Nevertheless, I think that hon. Members on both sides of the House want to see that loophole closed.

Mr. MacDermot: Does not the hon. and learned Member agree that if this is the reason for the change, then there is a fundamental shift taking place in the balance which was struck in the 1959 compromise, because it means that in future prosecution is not to be based on an actual publication in a certain sense which might do harm but purely on possession with a view to publication in a certain sense?

The Solicitor-General: The hon. and learned Gentleman must permit me to continue. I have set out the objectives of the 1959 Act. They have been stated by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins), who played such a large part in placing that Act on the Statute Book. It was then said strongly that one of the objectives was to prevent pornography and to stamp it out where possible, and also to punish pornographers. The hon. and learned Member referred to a quotation from Lord Birkett,
Dirt for dirt's sake".
Let me remind him that there is a lot of dirt for money's sake—and a great deal of money, too.

Mr. MacDermot: The only alteration in the law by the 1959 Act to get at dirt for dirt's sake was an alteration in the law of forfeiture procedure.

The Solicitor-General: There was the alteration in the law of forfeiture and there was a definition of obscenity, but what is clearly wanted is that there should not be the difficulties which arose, and have arisen since, because of the Clayton case, as a result of which the evidence of a police officer to whom publication is made is no longer avail-

able. As I understand it from some speeches, it is agreed that this situation should be prevented, if there is to be either prosecution or proceedings for forfeiture, whether before a jury or before magistrates. This is a method of obtaining evidence which in the past the courts in this kind of case have seen as proper and appropriate.
The procedure of the test purchase by a police officer was not a procedure for the benefit of a publisher or a procedure intended to lead to a friendly prosecution. This is a misconception. It is rarely possible to get evidence of publication of an obscene libel in the ordinary course of business because by its nature it is a furtive transaction with the purchaser perhaps an accomplice and in any case a very unwilling witness.
The courts therefore accepted that obscenity was one of the few fields—rationing was another—in which it was appropriate to obtain evidence by law enforcement officers in effect procuring breaches of the law. Nor is the purpose to facilitate prosecution rather than proceedings for forfeiture. In the "Lady Chatterley" case, where there was a sale to a police officer, the choice was not between prosecution and forfeiture proceedings, but between an arranged sale to the police officer and a sale after publication to a member of the public.
I want to deal with a point raised by the hon. Member for Stechford and my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) who has advised me that he is unable to be here for my reply. There is a misconception that Section 4 defence is not available on a charge of conspiracy. I suggest to the House that this is a misconception and that such a defence is available. If a publication is in the public good, which is what the defence would establish, then there can be an agreement, but it will be an agreement to do something which is not an offence.
I repeat the assurance given in regard to a conspiracy to corrupt public morals by the present Lord Chancellor when he was Attorney-General. This assurance has also been given by the present Attorney-General; that a conspiracy to corrupt public morals would not be charged so as to circumvent the statutory defence in Section 4. Section 4 may be


available in any event indirectly, but I willingly repeat that assurance which has been given. I am instructed to say that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will consider everything said today and further consider the question of conspiracy to corrupt public morals.
The collusive sale, the matter raised by the hon. and learned Member for Derby, North, would be no good in the case of the Soho shop and the exposure for sale suggestion would be no good either because there would have to be a corruptible person and that would not arise if the article were brought out from under the counter and handed to a police officer. As my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet pointed out, it is publication for the purpose of sale for gain, as Clause 1(2) states:
… a person shall be deemed to have an article for publication for gain …
And there the important words are "for gain". It is the view of the Government that if one is to stop this trade and deal with importers, one must have that definition.
The second loophole to which reference has been made, although not a great deal of discussion has turned on it, was the case of Mella v. Monahan—the display of priced articles in the shop—and the third the case of Straker. A choice which inevitably must come in these cases—and this is what concerns hon. Members—is the decision to choose between prosecution and forfeiture. The choice has to be made on the basis that Parliament has provided these two remedies or weapons in the armoury of the administration of the criminal law. The choice must be made in accordance with principle in the proper administration of the criminal law.
Section 2 is the punitive weapon and Section 3, forfeiture, the preventive weapon. The general rule has been that it would be oppressive under Section 2 to proceed against and prosecute a man who, so far from deliberately breaking the law, has taken all possible action to avoid breaking it. That is the first principle, and the second is that there must arise the consideration of convenience; there are cases of about 800 books being seized, and if there are 12 members of a jury to consider the matter, one can see that having 800 charges it would be impracticable and impossible

effectively to administer the criminal law if one had to prosecute in all such cases. Therefore, Parliament has given the law enforcement officers these two weapons to use.
I turn to the case of "Fanny Hill" to which the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. M. Foot) referred.

Mr. MacDermot: Before the Solicitor-General leaves that point, does not what he has said mean that if the prosecutions are to deal with bulk stocks held by the pornographer it is not practicable to put that before a jury because the sheer volume and number of books is too great? If that is so, it means that the prosecution will be open to proceed on forfeiture. If that is what the Bill is aimed at, and they are to be bound to go to forfeiture, why make it a criminal offence?

The Solicitor-General: Because we must have both weapons in our armoury—

Mr. MacDermot: One of which we cannot use.

The Solicitor-General: We can use the second one as well. Because we can use it as a punitive weapon and prosecute the person concerned for the publication of certain numbers—one book, three books, whatever it may be—but we still want to be able, if we are wishing to get at pornography, to deal with the vast bulk that remains with the bookseller, and with which importers, who are using them literally as ballast for cargo, seem to be flooding our shores.
I would remind the House that "Fanny Hill" appears to have been part of the ordinary stock-in-trade of what have been called pornographers, certainly for generations. I do not know whether all the people who were involved in the prosecution of "Fanny Hill" were prigs, but during the 14 years since 1950 there have been 15 sets of proceedings in respect of that book. Eight were prosecutions, seven were proceedings for forfeiture, and in every case there was a conviction or an order for destruction—

Mr. Roy Jenkins: How many of those were before the 1959 Act?

The Solicitor-General: Of the eight prosecutions, four were summary proceedings before magistrates, and four


were on indictment before a jury, so a jury have decided on the obscenity of the book. Only one was after the 1959 Act, and that was when "Fanny Hill" was one of a group of books—which two booksellers were charged with conspiring to publish. The special defence would only have been available if pleaded and made out on every book, but it was not so done.
Pre-1959, "Fanny Hill" had been through the courts very often; the lady had been convicted by a jury on three occasions. It is important that, at any rate, there have been verdicts of a jury. I am telling hon. Members some of the facts concerning this particular matter because it is relevant that "Fanny Hill" has been the subject of prosecution, and also of forfeiture proceedings, 15 times in the last 14 years—

Mr. Roy Jenkins: But we are talking of cases where evidence in support of literary merit is put, and whether in that case it should be before magistrates or a jury, so I cannot see the relevance of saying that it took place before a jury in the days before that evidence was admissible.

The Solicitor-General: No one knows in the "Lady Chatterley" case whether, when the prosecution did not succeed, it was on the question of whether the book was not obscene or was published in the public good. In regard to "Fanny Hill", the first test, as to obscenity, has been dealt with by a jury. After 1959 it was open to the publishers of "Fanny Hill" to intervene in the forfeiture cases, and they did intervene in two of them, to give evidence. If it is said that there should always be a right of trial by jury and that it would only be used by so-called reputable publishers, I would inform the House that in October, 1962, there were proceedings in regard to books with such titles as "The Race with Lust", "The Restless Virgin" and "Red Rape". In these particular proceedings this defence of merit or the public good was raised, so we have to consider very carefully whether, as is suggested in some quarters, we can ignore the fact that disreputable publishers or publishers of pornography would not pray this defence in aid in order to clog up the courts,

because that defence is what they did raise in October 1962.
As I have said before, dirt is money in this trade, and if we are to tackle the pornographer we must have the weapons to enable us to deal with persons who are producing this kind of material, and deal with them effectively and strongly.
The considerations taken into account in the case of "Fanny Hill" were the change in the law which has arisen as a result of the case of Clayton and, secondly the fact that when the police in the execution of a warrant went to these publishers they apparently took no more steps to see that there would be publication thereafter. Also there was at that time no evidence of an offence by the publishers. The question was whether steps should have been taken to hunt out that evidence, but in the circumstances prevailing at that time that was the decision taken. The hon. Member for Stechford went on to refer to the fact that there ought to be in his view a trial by jury in such proceedings.

Mr. MacDermot: The right to trial.

The Solicitor-General: Yes, the right, whether the proceedings be for prosecution or for forfeiture. I would say straight away that there is certainly no objection in principle to proceeding for forfeiture, leaving aside prosecution, being tried by a jury in a court of criminal jurisdiction. It would be an innovation, but that is certainly not something that should prevent it from happening. There are problems and they may not be insoluble, but there should be considerable hesitation before this particular procedure was introduced.
All I can say to hon. Members is that what the hon. Member for Stechford had to say on this point will be carefully studied by my right hon. Friend. It is accepted that there is no objection in principle, but one has to consider what would be the effect on quarter sessions, and what would be the effect on the criminal law, of juries of 12 people being asked to take away hundreds of volumes and read them. We also have to take into account that the pornographers, not pure and not simple, might well plead the special defence which is provided


under section 4. Therefore, while it certainly will be considered, and, indeed, has been considered, nevertheless I point out to the House the considerable difficulties which exist in this field.
This is a Bill which when it was introduced by my hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary earlier today met with some shot and shell from both sides and from different quarters of the House and, as I said when I opened my speech, it is obviously a matter of grave interest and grave concern. I beg the House not to underestimate the real problem that here exists and the real damage and the real danger that can be created by this usually sadistic material which is flooding into and around the country. Hon. Members were concentrating on obscenity in matters of sex, but this material is very often sadistic. It is right that the Government should take these weapons and I believe that the Bill provides an extra weapon for that armoury and I commend it to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills).

Orders of the Day — NEW FOREST [MONEY]

[Queen's Recommendation signified]

Considered in Committee under Standing Order No. 88 (Money Committees).

[Sir WILLIAM ANSTRUTHER-GRAY in the Chair]

Resolved,
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to alter the perambulation of the New Forest, to make further provision for the New Forest, to amend the New Forest Acts 1877 to 1949 and for purposes connected with the matters aforesaid, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of—

(a) any expenses incurred under the said Act by the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food;
(b) any increase attributable to the said Act in the sums payable out of moneys so provided under Section 17 of the Ministry of Transport Act 1919 or Section 236 of the Highways Act 1959; and
(c) any increase attributable to the said Act in the sums payable out of moneys so provided by way of Rate-deficiency Grant or Exchequer Equalisation Grant under the enactments relating to local government in England and Wales or in Scotland.—[Mr. Scott-Hopkins.)

Resolution to be reported.

Report to be received Tomorrow.

Orders of the Day — ADJOURNMENT

Resolved, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Peel.]

Adjourned accordingly at nineteen minutes to Ten o'clock.